Telemetry canary
Observability and structured logging canary — checks for structured logs (JSON), OpenTelemetry metrics/traces, proper error stack traces, and flags empty catches or silent log swallowing. Triggers on keywords: "/telemetry-canary", "telemetry-canary", "observability audit", "structured logging". Use when adding or changing logging, metrics, tracing, or error-handling code.From its SKILL.md
npx -y skills add HetCreep/CoalMine --skill telemetry-canaryAssembled from the repository path, not quoted from the project. Check it against their README if it does not work.
One thing to look at
- 11 stars11 stars. Stars are a popularity signal and not a quality one, but at this level it is likely that nobody has read this closely except its author, and you would be relying on your own review.
SKILL.md
2.6 KB, as published. Nobody here has run it
Telemetry Canary (Observability & Logging Audit)
<!-- SHARED:LANGUAGE_HEADER -->Audit code for proper telemetry instrumentation — ensure the app is not a black box in production.
Auditing Categories
- Empty / Silent Catch — catch blocks that swallow exceptions without logging a stack trace or forwarding the error.
- Unstructured Logs — plain-string logging in server code (prefer JSON / structured key-value for cloud queries).
- No Correlation ID — operations crossing boundaries (HTTP/gRPC/threads) without propagating a trace/correlation ID.
- Missing Metrics — critical transactions (checkout, auth, errors) lacking counter/histogram instrumentation.
- No Stack Traces — errors logged without stack context (
logger.error(e.message)instead oflogger.error(e)).
Per-stack grep patterns and right/wrong shapes per category: read references/checks.md before scanning.
Fix mode (choice-gated)
In Agent Context, after the report, present via ask_question:
- Apply safe logs: insert error logging into empty catch blocks (standard logger template) + stack-trace mapping. Each fix: checkpoint (git stash/commit in a git repo; else copy the file aside — never assume git) → apply → build + tests → auto-revert if newly red.
- Let me pick: user selects which telemetry gaps to resolve.
- Report only: exit unchanged.
Grants & denials (CLASSIFY-BLOCK)
| class | step it powers | grant | on denial |
|---|---|---|---|
| read | scan logging/metrics/error paths for the categories above | Read·Grep·Glob | refuse that file, name it — never a clean bill |
| write | Fix mode's safe-log apply, incl. checkpoint → build+tests → auto-revert if newly red | Edit·Bash (checkpoint/build/revert need exec) | report the fix as NOT applied AND the checkpoint/revert as NOT available, never claim done |
Output
| file:line | category | severity | finding | recommendation |
Severity: CRITICAL (swallowed error with state mutation) · HIGH (missing stack trace in error logs) · MEDIUM (unstructured log in API boundary) · LOW (minor trace gaps)
<!-- SHARED:REPORTING_FOOTER --> <!-- SHARED:ORCHESTRATION --> <!-- SHARED:ESCALATION_FOOTER -->What ships with it: 2 files
2.4 KB alongside SKILL.md
references/
- checks.md2.2 KB
- skill-meta.json185 B
Gives 0 of the 12 instructions most monitoring observability skills give
Counted across 530 of the 532 authors here whose files we hold, read 2026-09-06
- Use structured JSON loggingin 40 of 530, across 36 files
- Link every alert to a runbookin 29 of 530, across 27 files
- Attach correlation IDs to every log linein 19 of 530, across 16 files
- Alert on symptoms rather than causesin 19 of 530, across 17 files
- Use OpenTelemetry for distributed tracingin 15 of 530, across 14 files
- Alert on symptoms users feelin 15 of 530, across 13 files
- Implement health check endpointsin 14 of 530, across 10 files
- Inspect existing dashboards firstin 12 of 530, across 4 files
- Build the minimum useful boardin 12 of 530, across 4 files
- Start from operator questionsin 12 of 530, across 4 files
- Propagate trace context across boundariesin 11 of 530, across 10 files
- Include trace id in all log entriesin 10 of 530, across 9 files
Said here and by no other author read
- Audit code for proper telemetry instrumentation
- Read checks reference before scanning
- Present fix mode options via ask question
- Checkpoint before applying fixes
- Auto-revert if build or tests fail
Grouped from the skills themselves: near-identical wordings counted once, and counted by distinct author, so one author publishing three of these counts once.