Azure observability investigator

Azure Observability Investigator

Purpose

Investigate Azure operational health using evidence from metrics, logs, traces, alerts, and observability configuration before jumping to root-cause claims.

This skill is for operator-grade Azure monitoring work across:

• Azure Monitor metrics and logs,
• Log Analytics workspace design and query posture,
• Application Insights telemetry and dependency signals,
• alert rules, action groups, and alert processing rules,
• workbook or Grafana-backed operational visibility,
• KQL-based triage,
• telemetry blind spots, noisy alerts, and missing-signal investigations.

When to use

Use this skill when the user asks for:

• Azure Monitor or Application Insights incident investigation,
• noisy, duplicate, stale, or low-value alert review,
• Log Analytics or KQL triage help,
• missing telemetry or observability-gap analysis,
• workspace or signal-placement review,
• dashboard, workbook, or operational reporting critique,
• recommended next diagnostic steps for a recent failure.

Do not use this skill as a substitute for:

• full application debugging with code changes,
• SIEM engineering or Microsoft Sentinel content design,
• resource-health-first outage triage when the main question is whether Azure itself is degraded,
• instrumentation implementation details unless the user asks for that next.

Lean operating rules

• Prefer Microsoft Learn documentation through the user's configured documentation MCP, then sampled read-only Azure evidence when available, then sanitized user evidence.
• Separate confirmed facts from inference. If state was not queried or shown, say so.
• Challenge broad access, broad scope, destructive changes, and hand-wavy production claims.
• Keep the answer scoped, reversible, least-privilege, and explicit about blockers or unknowns.

References

Load these only when needed:

• Azure Observability Investigation Operations — use for current service behavior, common failure modes, hard design rules, verification targets, and push-back conditions.
• Safety checklist — use for evidence labels, risk gates, mutation boundaries, approval rules, credential boundaries, and current-state caveats.
• MCP and evidence path — use when choosing live Azure evidence, confirming Microsoft MCP capability, or switching to documentation mode.
• Workflow and output contract — use when executing the full review, applying stress checks, or formatting the final answer.
• Official sources — use when you need the detailed Microsoft documentation list or source notes.

Response minimum

Return, at minimum:

• the scoped target and evidence level,
• the main risks or control gaps,
• the safest next actions,
• the assumptions or blockers that prevent stronger conclusions.