Instrumentation Planning Skill

Instrumentation Planning

Strategic guidance for what to measure using Jobs-to-be-Done framework.

Core Question

For each user job, ask:

Did it complete? → completion rate
How long? → duration (p50, p95, p99)
What failed? → error type, context
Did they give up? → drop-off rate

Priority Tiers

| Tier | Focus | Examples | |------|-------|----------| | 1 | Crashes & errors | Crash reporting, error boundaries | | 2 | User context | User ID, session ID, device info | | 3 | Performance | App start, screen load, network | | 4 | Breadcrumbs | Navigation, user actions | | 5 | Business metrics | Funnels, feature usage |

Implementation Order

Day 1:  Crash reporting + User context
Week 1: Breadcrumbs + Release tracking
Week 2: Performance spans
Month 1: Business metrics

Future-Proofing

Use OTel-compatible span/attribute names now (zero cost, easier migration later):

http.request.method not method
ui.screen.load not screenLoad
app.start.cold not coldStart

See references/otel-mobile.md for full naming conventions.

Anti-Patterns

Measure everything (noise, battery drain)
Skip symbolication (unreadable crashes)
Block main thread for telemetry
Log PII in breadcrumbs

Implementation

See references/instrumentation-patterns.md for:

Detailed 5-tier checklist
Span naming conventions
Sampling strategies
Testing checklist

See references/jtbd.md for full Jobs-to-be-Done framework.

Related Skills

See skills/user-journey-tracking for implementing JTBD instrumentation
See skills/crash-instrumentation for Tier 1 (crashes)
See skills/symbolication-setup for Tier 1 (readable stack traces)

Agent Skills: Instrumentation Planning

Skill Files