Gcx Observability Agent Skill

(Experimental) End-to-end observability setup for Grafana Cloud using gcx.

Context cost
8.8k tokensestimated from the bundle, loaded when it triggers
Bundle
4 files · 35.4 kBtext throughout, nothing executable
Licence
Apache-2.0the author’s own terms
Last change
—no release on file
Servers it uses
Noneruns standalone

What it does

(Experimental) End-to-end observability setup for Grafana Cloud using gcx. Covers instrumentation, SLOs, alerting, synthetic monitoring, k6 load testing, IRM on-call, dashboards, cost optimization, and GitOps export. Use when the user wants to set up observability for an application from scratch or run a full observability rollout - phrases like "set up monitoring", "instrument my app", "add observability", or "onboard my service to Grafana Cloud".

What this skill changes about the agent has not been set out here as a list. Its SKILL.md, shown below, says it in the author’s own words.

analyticsobservability

The skill itself

A skill is instructions the model reads, so you can see what you are getting: below is the start of its SKILL.md. The front matter loads with every session, the body loads when the skill triggers, and the whole file comes with the install.

SKILL.md7.8 kB · preview
--- name: gcx-observability user-invocable: true argument-hint: "[phases]" allowed-tools: Bash, Read, Write, Edit, Glob, Grep, Agent, AskUserQuestion, TaskCreate, TaskUpdate, TaskList, TaskGet ---
16You are helping the user implement comprehensive Grafana Cloud observability for their application using a **test-driven** approach. Use gcx to automate setup.
17
18**Test-driven observability principle:** Define what "healthy" looks like *before* deploying instrumentation. Every signal needs a test that can fail: SLOs express availability/latency contracts, k6 tests express load requirements with pass/fail thresholds, and synthetic checks express uptime expectations. Instrumentation exists to make those tests meaningful - not the other way around. Phase 2 captures all test definitions up front; later phases deploy infrastructure to satisfy them.
19
20Work interactively - explain each phase, generate YAML from gcx resources list-examples <type> where one exists (not every kind ships an example — fall back to gcx resources list-types <type> and a minimal manifest), confirm before creating anything, and validate success.
21
22**Command discovery:** Before executing any action in a phase, use gcx <group> --help to discover the exact commands and flags available. Use gcx commands --flat -o json to see all command groups. Never assume a command's exact syntax - always discover it first. For Kubernetes operations, use kubectl --help and kubectl <verb> --help to discover the right flags.
23
24**Parallelism rules:**
25- Use TaskCreate to register every unit of work before starting anything, so the user can see progress.
26- Use the Agent tool to run independent operations concurrently. Launch multiple agents in a single message whenever their inputs don't depend on each other.
27- Within a phase, identify which resources are independent and launch them as parallel agents. Only serialize when there is a true dependency (e.g. a contact point must exist before a notification policy references it).
28- Use background agents (run_in_background: true) for slow operations (k8s prep, large exports) so you can continue other work while they run.
29- After all agents in a wave complete, collect results, report to the user, and move on.
30
31---
32
33## Step 1: Select Phases
34
This is a preview of SKILL.md. Download or install the skill to get the whole thing.
In the file
SKILL.md1,078 words
Files4
LicenceApache-2.0
Why you can read it

Nothing in a skill executes. The client loads the text and the model follows it, so a skill can be audited the way a runbook is — by reading it.

What it costs in context

Skills are not billed by the call. They are paid for in context: every token the instructions occupy is a token your code, your diff and your conversation cannot use. Here is what this one takes and when it takes it.

≈170
always loaded
The name and description, so the model knows the skill exists and when to reach for it.
8,680
on trigger
The instruction body and 3 supporting files, read only when the skill fires.
4.4%
of a 200k window
Ten skills this size would take about 44% of the window before you open a file.
050k100k150k200k context window

8.8k tokens, estimated from the bundle at four bytes to the token, held for the rest of the session once it triggers. Heavy. Teams tend to install this one per project rather than globally, and load it only when the job comes up.

Servers bill, skills cost

A server charges by the month. A skill charges once per session, in context, and then keeps charging it for as long as the session lives.

Before and after

The same question, put to the same model twice: once as it comes, and once with these instructions loaded.

No worked example has been published for this skill yet.

The procedure it runs

The procedure has not been set out here step by step. It is in the body of its SKILL.md: the start of it is shown above, and the whole file comes with the install.

Prose, not code

These steps are written for a model to follow, not executed by a runtime. It can still be told to skip one, and it will say so when it does.

Servers it uses

None. This skill calls no MCP servers at all.

Everything it needs is in the instructions, so it works in a project with nothing connected — the model reads the file and changes how it works with what it can already reach.

It asks the agent to write files, using whatever file access your client already has. Whether it reaches the network is not declared.

What it asks for
Writes filesyes
Network accessnot declared

Read from the allowed-tools line of this skill’s own SKILL.md. It also asks for Bash, which could do either, so what is not named there is not ruled out. A skill grants no permissions of its own — it can only ask for tools your client already has.

What it will not do

Every skill is narrow, and the useful ones say where they stop. These are the jobs this one is the wrong tool for.

What this skill is not for has not been published here. Nothing is implied by that: it is a section the author has not filled in.

What is in the bundle

4 files, 35.4 kB on disk. A bundle is text throughout: the instructions the model reads, plus the templates it fills in.

  • SKILL.md7.8 kB
  • references/phases-0-3-foundation.md11.4 kB
  • references/phases-4-7-alerting.md8.7 kB
  • references/phases-8-11-finalize.md7.5 kB
What is not in it

No dependencies and nothing executable: a skill is text the agent reads, so the bundle is 4 files you can review in full before installing. The Apache-2.0 licence covers the templates and examples as well as the instructions.

Install

Installing copies the bundle into your project. Nothing runs at install time — the files sit on disk until the model reads them.

# Gcx Observability · 8.8k tokens when loaded · macOS, Linux mkdir -p .claude/skills && t=$(mktemp -d) && curl -fsSL -o "$t/bundle.tar.gz" https://mcprush.com/api/skills/gcx-observability/bundle.tar.gz && tar -xzf "$t/bundle.tar.gz" -C "$t" && [ -d "$t/gcx-observability" ] && { [ ! -e .claude/skills/gcx-observability ] || { mv .claude/skills/gcx-observability "$t/.previous" && echo "Previous copy moved to $t/.previous"; }; } && mv "$t/gcx-observability" .claude/skills/ && echo "Installed .claude/skills/gcx-observability"
On Windows, or any OS with Node 20+
npx mcprush@latest skill add grafana/gcx-observability

Windows PowerShell says 'running scripts is disabled on this system'? Run Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope CurrentUser RemoteSigned once, or type npx.cmd instead of npx (codex.cmd, gemini.cmd, grok.cmd likewise). PowerShell 7 needs neither. Writes to .claude/skills/gcx-observability/ in the current project. For every project instead, run mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && t=$(mktemp -d) && curl -fsSL -o "$t/bundle.tar.gz" https://mcprush.com/api/skills/gcx-observability/bundle.tar.gz && tar -xzf "$t/bundle.tar.gz" -C "$t" && [ -d "$t/gcx-observability" ] && { [ ! -e ~/.claude/skills/gcx-observability ] || { mv ~/.claude/skills/gcx-observability "$t/.previous" && echo "Previous copy moved to $t/.previous"; }; } && mv "$t/gcx-observability" ~/.claude/skills/ && echo "Installed ~/.claude/skills/gcx-observability" (macOS, Linux) — or add --global to the npx line. The curl line replaces .claude/skills/gcx-observability/ only after the download succeeds, so files left there by another skill of the same name, or by an older release, do not mix in. A copy already there is moved aside, not deleted, and the line prints where.

Which clients pick it up on their own

A skill is a folder of text. Most of these read a skills folder and pick it up without being told; the rest take the same folder another way — an upload in the app, a parameter on an API call — and then choose it by its description just the same.

Claude Code.claude/skills/
Claude DesktopCustomize › Skills
ChatGPTSkills › Create › Upload
Cursor.cursor/skills/
VS Code.github/skills/
Codex CLI.agents/skills/
Gemini CLI.gemini/skills/
Grok Build.grok/skills/
Microsoft CopilotSkills › Upload a skill
PerplexityComputer › Skills › Upload a skill
DeepSeek Harness.dsh/skills/
Zed.agents/skills/
Devin Desktop.devin/skills/
Windsurf (legacy).windsurf/skills/
OpenAI Agents SDKInstructions or sandbox Skills
HTTP / APIa request parameter
This release
Versionnot versioned
Publishedno release date on file
PriceFree
Referencegrafana/gcx-observability

Versions

Its author publishes no version number, so there is nothing here to pin to: what you install is the folder as it stands today. Instructions change more often than APIs do — a skill can be rewritten entirely without anything it depends on moving.

Pinning

Nothing to pin to: this skill carries no version number of its own. What you install is what the folder holds on the day you install it.

Reviews

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Publisher
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