appinsights-instrumentation
Guidance for instrumenting webapps with Azure Application Insights. Provides telemetry patterns, SDK setup, and configuration references. WHEN: how to instrument app, App Insights SDK, telemetry patterns, what is App Insights, Application Insights guidance, instrumentation examples, APM best practices.
82
73%
Does it follow best practices?
Impact
96%
1.54xAverage score across 3 eval scenarios
Passed
No known issues
Optimize this skill with Tessl
npx tessl skill review --optimize ./.github/plugins/azure-skills/skills/appinsights-instrumentation/SKILL.mdQuality
Discovery
89%Based on the skill's description, can an agent find and select it at the right time? Clear, specific descriptions lead to better discovery.
This is a solid skill description that clearly identifies its niche (Azure Application Insights instrumentation) and provides explicit trigger terms via a WHEN clause. The main weakness is that the 'what' portion could be more specific about the concrete actions or patterns it covers, rather than staying at a slightly abstract level with terms like 'telemetry patterns' and 'configuration references'.
Suggestions
Expand the capability description with more concrete actions, e.g., 'configure custom metrics, set up distributed tracing, add exception and dependency tracking, configure sampling and filtering'.
| Dimension | Reasoning | Score |
|---|---|---|
Specificity | Names the domain (Azure Application Insights) and some actions (telemetry patterns, SDK setup, configuration references), but doesn't list multiple concrete actions like 'configure custom metrics, set up distributed tracing, add exception tracking'. | 2 / 3 |
Completeness | Clearly answers both 'what' (guidance for instrumenting webapps with Azure Application Insights, telemetry patterns, SDK setup, configuration references) and 'when' with an explicit WHEN clause listing trigger scenarios. | 3 / 3 |
Trigger Term Quality | Good coverage of natural terms users would say: 'instrument app', 'App Insights SDK', 'telemetry patterns', 'Application Insights', 'instrumentation examples', 'APM best practices'. These are terms a developer would naturally use when seeking this guidance. | 3 / 3 |
Distinctiveness Conflict Risk | Highly specific to Azure Application Insights instrumentation, which is a clear niche. The trigger terms like 'App Insights SDK', 'Application Insights guidance' are distinct and unlikely to conflict with other skills. | 3 / 3 |
Total | 11 / 12 Passed |
Implementation
57%Reviews the quality of instructions and guidance provided to agents. Good implementation is clear, handles edge cases, and produces reliable results.
This skill is well-structured as a routing/decision document with good progressive disclosure to language-specific and approach-specific guides. Its main weaknesses are the lack of any inline executable examples and missing validation/verification steps in the workflow. The content could be tightened by removing redundant 'when to use' sections and adding at least a verification step after instrumentation.
Suggestions
Add a validation/verification step after instrumentation (e.g., 'Verify telemetry is flowing: check the App Insights Live Metrics blade or run a test request and confirm it appears in Transaction Search within 5 minutes').
Include at least one minimal inline code snippet (e.g., the connection string configuration) so the skill body itself has concrete, actionable content rather than deferring everything to referenced files.
Consolidate the 'When to Use This Skill' and 'When to Use azure-prepare Instead' sections into a single compact decision block or merge with the callout box to reduce redundancy.
| Dimension | Reasoning | Score |
|---|---|---|
Conciseness | The skill has some unnecessary sections like 'When to Use This Skill' vs 'When to Use azure-prepare Instead' which are somewhat redundant with the callout box. The 'Collect context information' section explains things Claude could infer, and some phrasing is wordy (e.g., 'This determines how the application can be instrumented'). However, it's not egregiously verbose. | 2 / 3 |
Actionability | The skill provides a decision tree and references to external files with concrete examples (Bicep templates, PowerShell scripts, language-specific guides), but the skill body itself contains no executable code or commands. The guidance is procedural but relies entirely on referenced files for concrete implementation details. | 2 / 3 |
Workflow Clarity | The workflow has a reasonable sequence (collect context → decide auto vs manual → create resource → modify code) but lacks explicit validation checkpoints. There's no step to verify the App Insights resource was created successfully, no validation that telemetry is flowing, and no error recovery guidance. For an operation involving infrastructure creation and code modification, validation steps are important. | 2 / 3 |
Progressive Disclosure | Excellent progressive disclosure with a clear overview in the main file and well-signaled one-level-deep references to specific guides (auto.md, aspnetcore.md, nodejs.md, python.md), examples (appinsights.bicep), scripts (appinsights.ps1), and SDK references. Navigation is easy and content is appropriately split by language/approach. | 3 / 3 |
Total | 9 / 12 Passed |
Validation
100%Checks the skill against the spec for correct structure and formatting. All validation checks must pass before discovery and implementation can be scored.
Validation — 11 / 11 Passed
Validation for skill structure
No warnings or errors.
- Repository
- microsoft/azure-skills
- Commit
ccf1b99
- Reviewed
Table of Contents
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