instrument-observability SKILL.md skillA
instrument-observability from etr/groundwork is an agent skill: a SKILL.md folder an AI agent loads when a task calls for it.
mdr add etr/groundwork/instrument-observability@git:20260622.3609064Pins git:20260622.3609064 in mdr.lock. Pin the fingerprint instead.
- Audit grade
- A, 17 of 17 checks passed
- Kind
- SKILL.md skill
- Repository
- etr/groundwork
- Path
skills/instrument-observability/SKILL.md- Versions recorded
- 1
- Latest version
- git:20260622.3609064, committed Jun 22, 2026
- Size
- 3,629 bytes
- Repository stars
- 45
- License
- MIT
Instrument a change with structured logging, RED metrics, trace spans, and symptom-based alerts - use while building the change, not after an incident proves it was unobservable.
Collected from public GitHub. Every version is saved exactly as it was and never changes. Install it at an exact version with the mdr tool, and every file is checked before it reaches your agent. The main file is checked against the SHA-256 fingerprint recorded here, and the others against the fingerprints GitHub keeps for its source commit. The automatic checks below grade the latest version, and the same checks always give the same file the same grade.
What the file says
# Instrument Observability ## Overview Observability is added with the code that needs it, not bolted on after an outage. **Shift Left:** the cheapest time to make a change observable is while you still hold its context — what can fail, what "normal" looks like, which boundary the latency lives behind. **Core principle:** A change you cannot observe in production is a change you cannot operate. Logs, metrics, traces, and alerts are part of "done," not a follow-up ticket. ## When to Use - Adding or changing a service boundary, request handler, job, or external call - Code paths that can fail partially, retry, time out, or degrade - Any change whose health you would want to confirm during a [[staged-rollout]] Skip only for changes with no runtime behavior (docs, pure refactors with identical I/O, config-only edits). ## Process Apply each layer to the change. 1. **Structured logging.** Emit machine-parseable events (key-value / JSON), not interpolated prose. Attach the correlation/trace id and the dimensions you'd filter on (tenant, route, outcome). Log decisions and failures, not control flow. 2. **RED metrics.** For every request-serving surface, instrument the three: …
Read the whole file at its exact version.
How to install
mdr add etr/groundwork/instrument-observability@sha256:4c56728484308ceaThe line at the top of this page pins the label git:20260622.3609064, which is what most people want. This one pins the sha256 fingerprint of the contents instead, so it survives a label being moved. Either way the exact version is written to mdr.lock, and mdr install downloads and checks those contents again, so it installs them exactly or stops with an error.
[](https://markdownregistry.com/a/art_rkhk6yemn5gpsgla)
3 badge image fetches in 30 days. What the badge shows.
Versions
The registry has recorded 1 version of this file, committed on Jun 22, 2026.
Audit of the latest version
- pass: Frontmatter block present
- pass: Frontmatter declares a name
- pass: Frontmatter declares a description
- pass: Size between 200 bytes and 200 KB (3629 bytes)
- pass: No zero-width or bidi control characters
- pass: No instruction hidden inside an HTML comment
- pass: No link to an exfiltration or paste host
- pass: No credential-shaped string
- pass: No instruction to send local credentials anywhere
- pass: No text hidden with inline styles
- pass: No prompt-injection phrasing
- pass: No curl or wget piped into a shell
- pass: No recursive delete of root, home or parent
- pass: No instruction to read or print local credentials
- pass: No base64 blob over 200 characters
- pass: No link to a raw IP address
- pass: No script tag
Source
etr/groundwork · 45 stars · license MIT · pushed 2026-10-30 · branch main
API
GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/artifacts/art_rkhk6yemn5gpsgla GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/resolve?ref=etr/groundwork/instrument-observability GET https://markdownregistry.com/api/v1/blob/4c56728484308cea641b803934fd799b59b2857ae688478691e8220a463b409e
Your AI assistant does the legwork. You hear about the deals worth your word. Hand yours the standing instructions at modelranch.com and it joins the network that reads files like this one.
Guides: the SKILL.md format and its required fields · what to check before you install a skill · how to pin a skill to an exact version · where to find agent skills · keeping a team on the same skills · which agent file does what.