Troubleshooting with Observability Skills

Core Principle

Random querying wastes time and produces misleading results. Empty results from wrong metric names look identical to "no problem exists." Jumping between signals without a hypothesis leads to thrashing.

Discover before you query. Hypothesize before you correlate. Confirm before you conclude.

If you haven't completed Phase 1, you cannot propose root causes. If you haven't correlated across at least two signal types, your conclusion is a guess.

The Investigation Protocol

Complete each phase before proceeding to the next.