dt-obs-tracing

Distributed traces, spans, service dependencies, and request flow analysis. Use when investigating span-level details, failures, performance bottlenecks, or trace correlation. Trigger: "trace analysis", "slow requests", "failed spans", "service dependencies", "distributed trace", "span details", "HTTP status codes in traces", "database query spans", "messaging spans", "gRPC calls", "Lambda cold starts", "trace ID lookup", "exception analysis", "correlate logs and traces", "request attributes". Do NOT use for explaining existing queries, product documentation or configuration questions, service-level RED metrics (use dt-obs-services), log searching (use dt-obs-logs), or problem analysis (use dt-obs-problems).

Quality

90%

Does it follow best practices?

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Securityby

Passed

No findings from the security scan

Quality

Content

86%Weight 40%Scale 1-5

Reviews the quality of instructions and guidance provided to agents. Good implementation is clear, handles edge cases, and produces reliable results.

The content is a well-structured, highly actionable tracing reference: executable DQL across all sections, clean progressive disclosure into 12 real reference files, and clear investigation workflows. The only meaningful gap is mild verbosity in a few introductory passages that restate known concepts.

Suggestions

Trim the Overview paragraph and 'Essential attributes for trace analysis' intro to remove restatements of tracing concepts Claude already knows.

Add a brief validation checkpoint for analysis workflows (e.g., confirming a query returned sane volumes before drawing conclusions) to lift workflow clarity.

Consider consolidating the duplicated reference links (inline 'Learn more' vs. the end References section) into one navigation path to reduce redundancy.

Dimension	Reasoning	Score
Conciseness	The body is largely efficient with tight DQL examples and minimal padding, but a few introductory sentences (e.g., the Overview paragraph and 'Essential attributes for trace analysis') restate concepts Claude already knows and could be trimmed.	4 / 5
Actionability	It provides fully executable, copy-paste-ready DQL throughout — root-span filtering, percentile queries, failure-detection expand patterns, and trace aggregation with takeMin(record(...)) — plus a Span Types table mapping each type to concrete detection filters, key fields, and a reference file.	5 / 5
Workflow Clarity	Use Cases are structured as Goal/Trigger/Done triads and the root-detection strategy is a prioritized 3-step list, giving clear sequences; it lacks explicit validate→fix→retry checkpoints, though that is largely appropriate for read-only analysis.	4 / 5
Progressive Disclosure	SKILL.md is a clear overview with well-signaled one-level-deep references (inline 'Learn more' links and a Span Types table) pointing to 12 verified reference files, with core patterns inline and per-span-type depth split into separate files.	5 / 5
	Total	18 / 20 Passed

Description

95%Weight 40%Scale 1-5

Based on the skill's description, can an agent find and select it at the right time? Clear, specific descriptions lead to better discovery.

The description is strong: it states concrete capabilities, provides an exhaustive set of natural trigger terms, answers both what and when explicitly, and draws clear boundaries against sibling skills. Its only minor weakness is that the capability list reads as analysis categories rather than a crisp enumerated action set.

Dimension	Reasoning	Score
Specificity	Names the tracing domain plus several concrete analysis capabilities ('span-level details, failures, performance bottlenecks, or trace correlation'), but stops short of a tightly enumerated action list, so it sits just below the comprehensive-coverage anchor.	4 / 5
Completeness	It explicitly answers both 'what' (distributed traces, spans, service dependencies, request flow analysis) and 'when' ('Use when investigating...') with concrete trigger phrases, satisfying the top anchor.	5 / 5
Trigger Term Quality	An explicit 'Trigger:' clause lists 15 natural phrases users would say ('slow requests', 'failed spans', 'gRPC calls', 'Lambda cold starts', 'correlate logs and traces'), giving comprehensive coverage with synonyms and variants.	5 / 5
Distinctiveness Conflict Risk	A clear tracing niche with distinct triggers plus an explicit 'Do NOT use for' boundary redirecting to sibling skills (dt-obs-services, dt-obs-logs, dt-obs-problems) minimizes conflict risk.	5 / 5
	Total	19 / 20 Passed

Validation

100%

Warnings & errors only

Checks the skill against the spec for correct structure and formatting. All validation checks must pass before discovery and implementation can be scored.

Validation — 16 / 16 Passed

Validation for skill structure

No warnings or errors.

Repository: Dynatrace/dynatrace-for-ai
Path: skills/dt-obs-tracing/SKILL.md
Commit: 3287f9d

Reviewed: 5 days ago

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