Observability Agent - Intent-based Router

Scheduling

Goal

Route, design, tune, and review observability work across MELT+P signals, layers, boundaries, vendor categories, transport choices, meta-observability, and incident forensics.

Intent signature

• User asks for observability, telemetry, OTel, metrics, logs, traces, profiles, SLOs, RUM, APM, incident forensics, trace propagation, transport tuning, or observability-as-code.
• User needs vendor/category routing or observability architecture instead of a single vendor's already-covered setup.

When to use

• Setting up an observability pipeline (OTel SDK + Collector + vendor backend)
• Designing traceability across service and domain boundaries (W3C propagators, baggage, multi-tenant, multi-cloud)
• Tuning transport layer (UDP/MTU, OTLP gRPC vs HTTP, Collector DaemonSet vs sidecar topology)
• Running incident forensics (6-dimension localization: code / service / layer / host / region / infra)
• Selecting a vendor category (OSS full-stack vs commercial SaaS vs high-cardinality specialist vs profiling specialist)
• Implementing observability-as-code (Grafana Jsonnet dashboards, PrometheusRule CRD, OpenSLO YAML, SLO burn-rate alerts)
• Meta-observability (pipeline self-health, clock skew detection, cardinality guardrails, retention matrix)
• Covering the MELT+P signal set: metrics, logs, traces, profiles (OTEP 0239), cost (OpenCost), audit (SOC2/ISO), privacy (GDPR/PIPA)
• Evaluating log-pipeline migrations against current upstream support and project requirements

When NOT to use

• LLM ops (prompt versioning, evals, gen_ai span deep dive); use Langfuse, Arize Phoenix, LangSmith, or Braintrust directly
• Data pipeline lineage: use OpenLineage + Marquez, dbt test, or Airflow lineage backends
• IoT / hardware / datacenter physical-layer telemetry (IPMI, BMC, SNMP); use vendor DCIM tooling (Nlyte, Sunbird, Device42)
• Chaos engineering orchestration: use Chaos Mesh, Litmus, Gremlin, or ChaosToolkit (this skill consumes their telemetry; it does not orchestrate chaos)
• GPU / TPU infrastructure observability: use NVIDIA DCGM Exporter + Prometheus
• Software supply chain (SBOM, attestation): use sigstore (cosign / rekor), in-toto framework, SLSA level attestations
• Incident response workflow (on-call rotation, paging, escalation); use PagerDuty, OpsGenie, or Grafana OnCall
• Full TLS packet inspection: use packet-analysis or vendor TLS inspection tooling
• Single-vendor setup already fully covered by that vendor's own published skill; invoke the vendor skill directly

Expected inputs

• Observability intent, target system, architecture boundary, signals, vendor context, and incident symptoms if any
• Existing OTel/collector/vendor configs, dashboards, SLOs, trace/log/metric examples, or deployment topology

Expected outputs

• Routed observability guidance, setup/migration/tuning plan, incident-forensics path, alerting/SLO guidance, or observability-as-code recommendations
• Transport, meta-observability, privacy, audit, and retention checks
• Vendor delegation target when appropriate

Dependencies

Load resources conditionally: start with the execution protocol and one intent guide. Read only relevant matrix rows, then add a boundary, signal, or transport section when evidence requires it. The reference list is an index, not a preload list.

• OTel/W3C/CNCF references and resources under resources/
• Vendor categories, matrix, standards, incident forensics, meta-observability, transport, layers, boundaries, and signal guides

Control-flow features

• Branches by intent, vendor category, layer/boundary/signal matrix, transport topology, privacy/audit risk, and incident localization dimension
• May read/write observability config and docs; generally delegates vendor-specific implementation
• Requires live status verification for load-bearing CNCF/vendor currency

Structural Flow

Entry

1. Classify the intent: setup, migrate, investigate, alert, trace, tune, or route.
2. Identify layers, boundaries, signals, and vendor category.
3. Load only the relevant resource guide(s).

Scenes

1. PREPARE: Classify intent and matrix coverage.
2. ACQUIRE: Read configs, topology, telemetry examples, or incident signals.
3. REASON: Route vendor/category, tune transport, assess meta-observability, or localize incident.
4. ACT: Produce setup/migration/tuning/alert/trace/forensics guidance or config changes.
5. VERIFY: Check pipeline health, clock skew, cardinality, retention, privacy, and audit concerns.
6. FINALIZE: Report route, evidence, risks, and handoff references.

Transitions

• If a vendor-owned skill fully covers setup, delegate instead of duplicating docs.
• If migration is requested, verify upstream support and compatibility before choosing a replacement.
• If incident investigation is requested, use 6-dimensional localization.
• If transport tuning appears, load transport-specific resources.

Failure and recovery

• If live CNCF/vendor status is load-bearing, verify current status.
• If telemetry samples are missing, provide instrumentation/collection steps before analysis.
• If scope belongs to out-of-scope domains, route to external authoritative tools.

Exit

• Success: observability path is routed, evidence-backed, and checks are explicit.
• Partial success: missing telemetry, stale vendor status, or external-domain handoff is explicit.

Logical Operations

Actions

Tools and instruments

• OTel/CNCF/W3C standards references
• Vendor categories, matrix, incident forensics, meta-observability, transport and signal guides
• Optional CLI/config tooling from the target stack

Canonical workflow path

1. Classify intent: setup, migrate, investigate, alert, trace, tune, or route.
2. Select layer/boundary/signal coverage from `resources/matrix.md`.
3. Load the specific vendor, transport, incident, or signal guide before producing guidance.

When CNCF/vendor status is load-bearing, verify live state at https://landscape.cncf.io.

Resource scope

Preconditions

• Observability intent and system boundary are identifiable.
• Relevant telemetry/config evidence is available or missing evidence is stated.

Effects and side effects

• May recommend or modify observability config, dashboards, alerts, and instrumentation docs.
• May route to vendor-owned skills or external tools.

Guardrails

1. Classify intent and use resources/vendor-categories.md only when category selection or vendor delegation is needed.
2. Load the transport guide matching the observed problem: UDP/MTU, OTLP protocol, Collector topology, or sampling.
3. Before declaring a setup complete, verify pipeline health, clock synchronization, cardinality limits, and retention against the project's requirements. Record checks that could not run.
4. Verify current upstream support, attribute stability, and migration guidance when they affect the recommendation. Use official project documentation and CNCF status; stored versions are assumptions, not proof of current status.
5. Use W3C Trace Context by default, with cloud translations from resources/boundaries/cross-application.md where required.
6. Apply PII redaction and sampling-aware baggage controls at collection. Check retention, erasure, and audit requirements for the target system.
7. Deliver working configuration or explicitly labeled proposals. Scaffolds and unverified checks cannot count as completed setup.

The coverage matrix has four layers (L3, L4, mesh, L7), four boundaries (multi-tenant, cross-application, SLO, release), and seven signals (metrics, logs, traces, profiles, cost, audit, privacy). Read matching rows in resources/matrix.md; N/A cells do not require implementation.

Routes (Intent)

Invocation and loading

For example: /oma-observability --investigate "5xx spike in checkout". Other skills pass the intent, system boundary, and evidence; the result returns guidance, checks, and any vendor handoff.

Read resources/execution-protocol.md first. Use the selected route above, then only relevant checklist sections before delivery. Load resources/examples.md for an unfamiliar output shape and resources/anti-patterns.md only for the affected category. Do not load all transport, layer, boundary, and signal guides together.

Integrations with OMA Ecosystem

Versioning & Deprecation

• Spec version pinning: otel_spec / otel_semconv keys in each file's frontmatter document the assumed version. If content depends on a specific attribute stability tier, the tier is stated inline.
• Update triggers (not scheduled):
  • OTel semconv promotion (Development → RC → Stable) affecting attributes cited in this skill → update resources/standards.md and the affected file, bump minor version.
  • Attribute deprecation → replace across all citing files; migration note in resources/standards.md.
  • CNCF status change for a vendor/project named in vendor-categories.md (Graduated / Archived / acquired) → update the vendor table.
• Authoritative live state: https://landscape.cncf.io for CNCF project status. This skill does not promise to track it on any schedule; verify at use time if the information is load-bearing.
• No per-file review stamps: earlier drafts carried last_reviewed / next_review frontmatter. Those were removed because no automated enforcement exists; relying on voluntary manual review produces stale stamps that misrepresent currency. Git history (git log path/to/file) is the source of truth for when a file was last changed.

Contribution Protocol

• Do NOT pre-declare future OMA skill names in user-facing documentation. If OMA-native coverage becomes warranted for an out-of-scope domain, evaluate and name it at that point.
• File edits follow the ownership matrix in docs/plans/designs/005-oma-observability.md §Ownership. CTO co-signs changes to standards.md, matrix.md, anti-patterns.md.
• Run resources/checklist.md §1 Setup validation before merging.

References

• Execution steps: resources/execution-protocol.md
• Intent classification: resources/intent-rules.md
• Coverage matrix: resources/matrix.md
• Standards (OTel spec, W3C, ISO): resources/standards.md
• Vendor categories: resources/vendor-categories.md
• Incident forensics: resources/incident-forensics.md
• Meta-observability: resources/meta-observability.md
• Observability-as-code: resources/observability-as-code.md
• Anti-patterns catalog (72 entries): resources/anti-patterns.md
• Checklist: resources/checklist.md
• Examples: resources/examples.md
• Transport:
  • resources/transport/udp-statsd-mtu.md
  • resources/transport/otlp-grpc-vs-http.md
  • resources/transport/collector-topology.md
  • resources/transport/sampling-recipes.md
• Layers:
  • resources/layers/L3-network.md
  • resources/layers/L4-transport.md
  • resources/layers/mesh.md
  • resources/layers/L7-application/web-rum.md
  • resources/layers/L7-application/mobile-rum.md
  • resources/layers/L7-application/crash-analytics.md
  • resources/layers/L7-application/waf.md
• Boundaries:
  • resources/boundaries/multi-tenant.md
  • resources/boundaries/cross-application.md
  • resources/boundaries/slo.md
  • resources/boundaries/release.md
• Signals:
  • resources/signals/metrics.md
  • resources/signals/logs.md
  • resources/signals/traces.md
  • resources/signals/profiles.md
  • resources/signals/cost.md
  • resources/signals/audit.md
  • resources/signals/privacy.md