Service Mesh Observability

---
name: service-mesh-observability
description: "Complete guide to observability patterns for Istio, Linkerd, and service mesh deployments."
risk: critical
source: community
date_added: "2026-02-27"
---

# Service Mesh Observability

Complete guide to observability patterns for Istio, Linkerd, and service mesh deployments.

## Do not use this skill when

- The task is unrelated to service mesh observability
- You need a different domain or tool outside this scope

## Instructions

- Clarify goals, constraints, and required inputs.
- Apply relevant best practices and validate outcomes.
- Provide actionable steps and verification.

## Use this skill when

- Setting up distributed tracing across services
- Implementing service mesh metrics and dashboards
- Debugging latency and error issues
- Defining SLOs for service communication
- Visualizing service dependencies
- Troubleshooting mesh connectivity

## Core Concepts

### 1. Three Pillars of Observability

```
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                  Observability                       │
├─────────────────┬─────────────────┬─────────────────┤
│     Metrics     │     Traces      │      Logs       │
│                 │                 │                 │
│ • Request rate  │ • Span context  │ • Access logs   │
│ • Error rate    │ • Latency       │ • Error details │
│ • Latency P50   │ • Dependencies  │ • Debug info    │
│ • Saturation    │ • Bottlenecks   │ • Audit trail   │
└─────────────────┴─────────────────┴─────────────────┘
```

### 2. Golden Signals for Mesh

| Signal | Description | Alert Threshold |
|--------|-------------|-----------------|
| **Latency** | Request duration P50, P99 | P99 > 500ms |
| **Traffic** | Requests per second | Anomaly detection |
| **Errors** | 5xx error rate | > 1% |
| **Saturation** | Resource utilization | > 80% |

## Templates

These are version-specific fragments, not a complete deployable stack. Pin mesh/collector/operator versions, export or render the supported schema and review manifests before applying. Supply Services, RBAC and receiver/provider wiring separately; a ServiceMonitor for istiod does not by itself scrape every workload proxy. Thresholds are examples requiring service-specific SLOs.

Keep tracing/tap output inside authorized environments, redact sensitive attributes and restrict access. The anonymous Kiali example is for isolated trusted development only; configure authenticated access and narrow namespace/RBAC scope before shared use; see [Kiali authentication](https://kiali.io/docs/configuration/authentication/anonymous/).

### Template 1: Istio with Prometheus & Grafana

```yaml
# Install Prometheus
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: prometheus
  namespace: istio-system
data:
  prometheus.yml: |
    global:
      scrape_interval: 15s
    scrape_configs:
      - job_name: 'istio-mesh'
        kubernetes_sd_configs:
          - role: endpoints
            namespaces:
              names:
                - istio-system
        relabel_configs:
          - source_labels: [__meta_kubernetes_service_name]
            action: keep
            regex: istio-telemetry
---
# ServiceMonitor for Prometheus Operator
apiVersion: monitoring.coreos.com/v1
kind: ServiceMonitor
metadata:
  name: istio-mesh
  namespace: istio-system
spec:
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: istiod
  endpoints:
    - port: http-monitoring
      interval: 15s
```

### Template 2: Key Istio Metrics Queries

```promql
# Request rate by service
sum(rate(istio_requests_total{reporter="destination"}[5m])) by (destination_service_name)

# Error rate (5xx)
sum(rate(istio_requests_total{reporter="destination", response_code=~"5.."}[5m]))
  / sum(rate(istio_requests_total{reporter="destination"}[5m])) * 100

# P99 latency
histogram_quantile(0.99,
  sum(rate(istio_request_duration_milliseconds_bucket{reporter="destination"}[5m]))
  by (le, destination_service_name))

# TCP connections
sum(istio_tcp_connections_opened_total{reporter="destination"}) by (destination_service_name)

# Request size
histogram_quantile(0.99,
  sum(rate(istio_request_bytes_bucket{reporter="destination"}[5m]))
  by (le, destination_service_name))
```

### Template 3: Jaeger Distributed Tracing

```yaml
# Jaeger installation for Istio
apiVersion: install.istio.io/v1alpha1
kind: IstioOperator
spec:
  meshConfig:
    enableTracing: true
    defaultConfig:
      tracing:
        sampling: 100.0  # 100% in dev, lower in prod
        zipkin:
          address: jaeger-collector.istio-system:9411
---
# Jaeger deployment
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: jaeger
  namespace: istio-system
spec:
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: jaeger
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: jaeger
    spec:
      containers:
        - name: jaeger
          image: jaegertracing/all-in-one:1.50
          ports:
            - containerPort: 5775   # UDP
            - containerPort: 6831   # Thrift
            - containerPort: 6832   # Thrift
            - containerPort: 5778   # Config
            - containerPort: 16686  # UI
            - containerPort: 14268  # HTTP
            - containerPort: 14250  # gRPC
            - containerPort: 9411   # Zipkin
          env:
            - name: COLLECTOR_ZIPKIN_HOST_PORT
              value: ":9411"
```

### Template 4: Linkerd Viz Dashboard

```bash
# Install Linkerd viz extension
linkerd viz install | kubectl apply -f -

# Access dashboard
linkerd viz dashboard

# CLI commands for observability
# Top requests
linkerd viz top deploy/my-app

# Per-route metrics
linkerd viz routes deploy/my-app --to deploy/backend

# Live traffic inspection
linkerd viz tap deploy/my-app --to deploy/backend

# Service edges (dependencies)
linkerd viz edges deployment -n my-namespace
```

### Template 5: Grafana Dashboard JSON

```json
{
  "dashboard": {
    "title": "Service Mesh Overview",
    "panels": [
      {
        "title": "Request Rate",
        "type": "graph",
        "targets": [
          {
            "expr": "sum(rate(istio_requests_total{reporter=\"destination\"}[5m])) by (destination_service_name)",
            "legendFormat": "{{destination_service_name}}"
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "title": "Error Rate",
        "type": "gauge",
        "targets": [
          {
            "expr": "sum(rate(istio_requests_total{response_code=~\"5..\"}[5m])) / sum(rate(istio_requests_total[5m])) * 100"
          }
        ],
        "fieldConfig": {
          "defaults": {
            "thresholds": {
              "steps": [
                {"value": 0, "color": "green"},
                {"value": 1, "color": "yellow"},
                {"value": 5, "color": "red"}
              ]
            }
          }
        }
      },
      {
        "title": "P99 Latency",
        "type": "graph",
        "targets": [
          {
            "expr": "histogram_quantile(0.99, sum(rate(istio_request_duration_milliseconds_bucket{reporter=\"destination\"}[5m])) by (le, destination_service_name))",
            "legendFormat": "{{destination_service_name}}"
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "title": "Service Topology",
        "type": "nodeGraph",
        "targets": [
          {
            "expr": "sum(rate(istio_requests_total{reporter=\"destination\"}[5m])) by (source_workload, destination_service_name)"
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}
```

### Template 6: Kiali Service Mesh Visualization

```yaml
# Kiali installation
apiVersion: kiali.io/v1alpha1
kind: Kiali
metadata:
  name: kiali
  namespace: istio-system
spec:
  auth:
    strategy: anonymous  # or openid, token
  deployment:
    accessible_namespaces:
      - "**"
  external_services:
    prometheus:
      url: http://prometheus.istio-system:9090
    tracing:
      url: http://jaeger-query.istio-system:16686
    grafana:
      url: http://grafana.istio-system:3000
```

### Template 7: OpenTelemetry Integration

Use OTLP to a Jaeger OTLP-enabled receiver and expose its 4317 Service port. The native Jaeger Collector exporter was removed from standard distributions; see [OpenTelemetry migration](https://opentelemetry.io/docs/compatibility/migration/). Plaintext `insecure: true` below is an isolated-network example; use authenticated TLS for untrusted links. Configure the referenced Istio `otel` extension provider separately.

```yaml
# OpenTelemetry Collector for mesh
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: otel-collector-config
data:
  config.yaml: |
    receivers:
      otlp:
        protocols:
          grpc:
            endpoint: 0.0.0.0:4317
          http:
            endpoint: 0.0.0.0:4318
      zipkin:
        endpoint: 0.0.0.0:9411

    processors:
      batch:
        timeout: 10s

    exporters:
      otlp/jaeger:
        endpoint: jaeger-collector:4317
        tls:
          insecure: true
      prometheus:
        endpoint: 0.0.0.0:8889

    service:
      pipelines:
        traces:
          receivers: [otlp, zipkin]
          processors: [batch]
          exporters: [otlp/jaeger]
        metrics:
          receivers: [otlp]
          processors: [batch]
          exporters: [prometheus]
---
# Istio Telemetry v2 with OTel
apiVersion: telemetry.istio.io/v1alpha1
kind: Telemetry
metadata:
  name: mesh-default
  namespace: istio-system
spec:
  tracing:
    - providers:
        - name: otel
      randomSamplingPercentage: 10
```

## Alerting Rules

```yaml
apiVersion: monitoring.coreos.com/v1
kind: PrometheusRule
metadata:
  name: mesh-alerts
  namespace: istio-system
spec:
  groups:
    - name: mesh.rules
      rules:
        - alert: HighErrorRate
          expr: |
            sum(rate(istio_requests_total{response_code=~"5.."}[5m])) by (destination_service_name)
            / sum(rate(istio_requests_total[5m])) by (destination_service_name) > 0.05
          for: 5m
          labels:
            severity: critical
          annotations:
            summary: "High error rate for {{ $labels.destination_service_name }}"

        - alert: HighLatency
          expr: |
            histogram_quantile(0.99, sum(rate(istio_request_duration_milliseconds_bucket[5m]))
            by (le, destination_service_name)) > 1000
          for: 5m
          labels:
            severity: warning
          annotations:
            summary: "High P99 latency for {{ $labels.destination_service_name }}"

        - alert: MeshCertExpiring
          expr: |
            (certmanager_certificate_expiration_timestamp_seconds - time()) / 86400 < 7
          labels:
            severity: warning
          annotations:
            summary: "Mesh certificate expiring in less than 7 days"
```

## Best Practices

### Do's
- **Sample appropriately** - 100% in dev, 1-10% in prod
- **Use trace context** - Propagate headers consistently
- **Set up alerts** - For golden signals
- **Correlate metrics/traces** - Use exemplars
- **Retain strategically** - Hot/cold storage tiers

### Don'ts
- **Don't over-sample** - Storage costs add up
- **Don't ignore cardinality** - Limit label values
- **Don't skip dashboards** - Visualize dependencies
- **Don't forget costs** - Monitor observability costs

## Resources

- [Istio Observability](https://istio.io/latest/docs/tasks/observability/)
- [Linkerd Observability](https://linkerd.io/2.14/features/dashboard/)
- [OpenTelemetry](https://opentelemetry.io/)
- [Kiali](https://kiali.io/)

## Limitations
- Use this skill only when the task clearly matches the scope described above.
- Do not treat the output as a substitute for environment-specific validation, testing, or expert review.
- Stop and ask for clarification if required inputs, permissions, safety boundaries, or success criteria are missing.