# Instrument Apps with Azure Application Insights

Application teams need consistent telemetry setup across languages and Azure hosting services. This skill provides targeted SDK, infrastructure, environment, and query guidance for Application Insights.

## Install

```bash
npx skillstore add microsoft/appinsights-instrumentation
```

## Metadata

- Status: approved
- Slug: microsoft-appinsights-instrumentation
- Version: 0.0.0-placeholder
- Author version: 0.0.0-placeholder
- Skillstore revision: r2
- Version status: valid
- Tree hash: b7ce7b8b75391515f687a15dda4893dc1386c873a9639f4e58c5284ea69ba71c
- Author: microsoft
- GitHub username: microsoft
- License: MIT
- Repository: https://github.com/microsoft/github-copilot-for-azure/tree/main/plugin/skills/appinsights-instrumentation/
- Ref: ebdfe608f5de2b66ff37ab4af12af8ac4f5e8006
- Supported tools: Claude, Codex, Claude Code
- Audit status: complete
- Agent install advisory: allowed
- Manual install advisory: allowed
- Artifact signature: available
- Audit attestation: unavailable
- Human verification: not\_verified
- Risk factors: filesystem, network, external\_commands, env\_access
- Quality score: 84
- Quality tier: gold
- Public page: https://skillstore.pages.dev/skills/microsoft-appinsights-instrumentation
- Manifest: https://skillstore.pages.dev/api/skills/microsoft-appinsights-instrumentation/manifest

## Capabilities

- Explains portal auto-instrumentation for supported Azure App Service applications.
- Provides manual SDK setup guidance for ASP.NET Core, Node.js, and Python.
- Supplies Bicep and Azure CLI examples for Application Insights and Log Analytics resources.
- Covers Container Apps metrics, logs, distributed tracing, Dapr, and KQL diagnostics.
- Summarizes Azure Monitor OpenTelemetry options for Python, TypeScript, and Java.

## Use Cases

- Plan SDK Instrumentation: Select the appropriate Application Insights setup and initialization order for a supported application stack.
- Configure Azure Observability: Plan Application Insights, Log Analytics, environment variables, and infrastructure changes for an Azure workload.
- Diagnose Container Apps: Use metrics, logs, traces, and KQL guidance to assess Azure Container Apps observability.

## Prompt Templates

### Choose an Instrumentation Method

```
Explain whether my [language] application hosted on [service] supports automatic instrumentation. Compare it with manual SDK setup.
```

### Create a Manual Setup Plan

```
Plan Application Insights instrumentation for my [framework] application on [Azure service]. Include package, initialization, configuration, and deployment steps.
```

### Review Azure Infrastructure

```
Review my Application Insights and Log Analytics design for [workload]. Identify required Bicep or Azure CLI changes and configuration risks.
```

### Design Distributed Observability

```
Design tracing and diagnostics for [services] on Azure Container Apps. Cover correlation, sampling, Dapr, role naming, and useful KQL investigations.
```

## Limitations

- The skill provides reference guidance and directs project modification requests to azure-prepare.
- Azure CLI examples require installed tools, authentication, and suitable resource permissions.
- Examples contain placeholders and require validation against the target subscription and hosting environment.
- Direct application guidance focuses on ASP.NET Core, Node.js, and Python; Java coverage is limited.

## Best Practices

- Confirm the application language, framework, and hosting environment before choosing an instrumentation method.
- Keep connection values in managed configuration or secret references, and never commit real values.
- Initialize telemetry early, then validate traces, dependencies, logs, sampling, and service identity after deployment.

## Anti Patterns

- Do not hardcode connection values in source files or infrastructure examples.
- Avoid full production sampling without evaluating traffic volume, cost, and diagnostic requirements.
- Do not treat infrastructure metrics as a replacement for application traces and dependency telemetry.

## Security Audit

- Audited at: 2026-07-23T17:41:02.651\+00:00
- Summary: The reviewed patterns are documentation and examples for Azure Application Insights. Relative links, Azure CLI substitutions, portal URLs, and environment reads do not demonstrate traversal, reconnaissance, or unauthorized secret access. No prompt injection or malicious intent was found.

## Stats

- Views: 122
- Downloads: 16
- Favorites: 0
- Popularity score: 0