Azure Observability Services

Services

| Service | Use When | MCP Tools | CLI | |---------|----------|-----------|-----| | Azure Monitor | Metrics, alerts, dashboards | azure__monitor | az monitor | | Application Insights | APM, distributed tracing | azure__applicationinsights | az monitor app-insights | | Log Analytics | Log queries, KQL | azure__kusto | az monitor log-analytics | | Alerts | Notifications, actions | - | az monitor alert | | Workbooks | Interactive reports | azure__workbooks | - |

MCP Server (Preferred)

When Azure MCP is enabled:

Monitor

• azure__monitor with command monitor_metrics_query - Query metrics
• azure__monitor with command monitor_logs_query - Query logs with KQL

Application Insights

• azure__applicationinsights with command applicationinsights_component_list - List App Insights resources

Log Analytics

• azure__kusto with command kusto_cluster_list - List clusters
• azure__kusto with command kusto_query - Execute KQL queries

If Azure MCP is not enabled: Run /azure:setup or enable via /mcp.

CLI Reference

# List Log Analytics workspaces
az monitor log-analytics workspace list --output table

# Query logs with KQL
az monitor log-analytics query \
  --workspace WORKSPACE_ID \
  --analytics-query "AzureActivity | take 10"

# List Application Insights
az monitor app-insights component list --output table

# List alerts
az monitor alert list --output table

# Query metrics
az monitor metrics list \
  --resource RESOURCE_ID \
  --metric "Percentage CPU"

Common KQL Queries

// Recent errors
AppExceptions
| where TimeGenerated > ago(1h)
| project TimeGenerated, Message, StackTrace
| order by TimeGenerated desc

// Request performance
AppRequests
| where TimeGenerated > ago(1h)
| summarize avg(DurationMs), count() by Name
| order by avg_DurationMs desc

// Resource usage
AzureMetrics
| where TimeGenerated > ago(1h)
| where MetricName == "Percentage CPU"
| summarize avg(Average) by Resource

Monitoring Strategy

| What to Monitor | Service | Metric/Log | |-----------------|---------|------------| | Application errors | App Insights | Exceptions, failed requests | | Performance | App Insights | Response time, dependencies | | Infrastructure | Azure Monitor | CPU, memory, disk | | Security | Log Analytics | Sign-ins, audit logs | | Costs | Cost Management | Budget alerts |

SDK Quick References

For programmatic access to monitoring services, see the condensed SDK guides:

• OpenTelemetry: Python | TypeScript | Python Exporter
• Monitor Query: Python | Java
• Log Ingestion: Python | Java
• App Insights Mgmt: .NET

Service Details

For deep documentation on specific services:

• Application Insights setup -> appinsights-instrumentation skill
• KQL query patterns -> Log Analytics KQL documentation
• Alert configuration -> Azure Monitor alerts documentation