Azure Diagnostics

AUTHORITATIVE GUIDANCE — MANDATORY COMPLIANCE

This document is the official source for debugging and troubleshooting Azure production issues. Follow these instructions to diagnose and resolve common Azure service problems systematically.

Triggers

Activate this skill when user wants to:

• Debug or troubleshoot production issues
• Diagnose errors in Azure services
• Analyze application logs or metrics
• Fix image pull, cold start, or health probe issues
• Investigate why Azure resources are failing
• Find root cause of application errors
• Troubleshoot App Service issues (high CPU, deployment failures, crashes, slow responses, TLS/custom domains)
• Respond to prompts like "troubleshoot app service", "app service high CPU", or "app service deployment failure"
• Troubleshoot Azure Function Apps (invocation failures, timeouts, binding errors)
• Find the App Insights or Log Analytics workspace linked to a Function App
• Troubleshoot AKS clusters, nodes, pods, ingress, or Kubernetes networking issues
• Troubleshoot Azure VM connectivity issues (RDP/SSH failures, port 3389/22 timeouts, NSG or firewall blocking, credential resets)
• Troubleshoot Azure Messaging SDK issues (Event Hubs, Service Bus connection failures, AMQP errors, message lock issues)
• Root-cause a symptom that looks like a healthy-runtime-but-wrong-destination problem (e.g., telemetry/messages stop flowing to the expected resource after a config change) — invoke this skill for the matrix even when MCP tools could answer the surface question alone

Rules

1. Start with systematic diagnosis flow
2. Use supplied evidence first. If the user requests evidence-only analysis or prohibits live Azure access, do not query or modify Azure. Diagnose from the supplied logs, metrics, and timeline; identify assumptions and provide optional verification steps.
3. Use AppLens (MCP) for AI-powered diagnostics when available
4. Check resource health before deep-diving into logs
5. Select appropriate troubleshooting guide based on service type
6. Document findings and attempted remediation steps
7. Prefer bundled diagnostic scripts over ad hoc calls for permitted live collection when identifiers are known. If supplied evidence suffices or live access is prohibited, don't run them; otherwise run the applicable script first.
8. Route AKS incidents to the dedicated AKS troubleshooting document

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Quick Diagnosis Flow

1. Identify symptoms - What's failing?
2. Check resource health - Is Azure healthy?
3. Review logs - What do logs show?
4. Analyze metrics - Performance patterns?
5. Investigate recent changes - What changed?

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Troubleshooting Guides by Service

Service	Common Issues	Reference
Container Apps	Image pull failures, cold starts, health probes, port mismatches	container-apps/
App Service	High CPU, deployment failures, crashes, slow responses, TLS/custom domains	app-service/
Function Apps	App details, invocation failures, timeouts, binding errors, cold starts, missing app settings	functions/
AKS	Cluster access, nodes, kube-system, scheduling, crash loops, ingress, DNS, upgrades	AKS Troubleshooting
Compute	VM RDP/SSH connectivity, NSG/firewall blocks, credential resets, VM agent/tooling issues	VM Connectivity Troubleshooting
Messaging	Event Hubs & Service Bus SDK errors, AMQP failures, message lock, connectivity	Messaging Troubleshooting

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Routing

• Keep Container Apps and Function Apps diagnostics in this parent skill.
• Route active AKS incidents, AKS-specific intake, evidence gathering, and remediation guidance to AKS Troubleshooting.
• Route Azure VM RDP/SSH connectivity, NSG/firewall, credential reset, and VM agent troubleshooting to VM Connectivity Troubleshooting.
• Route Azure Messaging SDK troubleshooting (Event Hubs, Service Bus) to Messaging Troubleshooting.

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Quick Reference

Common Diagnostic Commands

# Check resource health
az resource show --ids RESOURCE_ID
# View activity log
az monitor activity-log list -g RG --max-events 20
# Container Apps logs
az containerapp logs show --name APP -g RG --follow
# Function App logs (query App Insights traces)
az monitor app-insights query --apps APP-INSIGHTS -g RG \
  --analytics-query "traces | where timestamp > ago(1h) | order by timestamp desc | take 50"

AppLens (MCP Tools)

For AI-powered diagnostics, use:

mcp_azure_mcp_applens
  intent: "diagnose issues with <resource-name>"
  command: "diagnose"
  parameters:
    resourceId: "<resource-id>"

Provides:
- Automated issue detection
- Root cause analysis
- Remediation recommendations

Azure Monitor (MCP Tools)

For querying logs and metrics:

mcp_azure_mcp_monitor
  intent: "query logs for <resource-name>"
  command: "logs_query"
  parameters:
    workspaceId: "<workspace-id>"
    query: "<KQL-query>"

See kql-queries.md for common diagnostic queries.

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Check Azure Resource Health

Using MCP

mcp_azure_mcp_resourcehealth
  intent: "check health status of <resource-name>"
  command: "get"
  parameters:
    resourceId: "<resource-id>"

Using CLI

# Check specific resource health
az resource show --ids RESOURCE_ID

# Check recent activity
az monitor activity-log list -g RG --max-events 20

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References

• KQL Query Library
• Azure Resource Graph Queries
• App Service Troubleshooting
• Function Apps Troubleshooting
• VM Connectivity Troubleshooting
• Messaging Troubleshooting