Azure Application Insights Resource Manager for .NET
Manage Application Insights components, availability tests, and workbooks from .NET code.
The document covers Azure identity, managed identity, secure storage guidance, and notes that an API key is shown only once. However, create, update, and delete operations are presented without user confirmation, least-privilege role guidance, rollback, or explicit pre/post-operation data-flow disclosure. Several examples print connection strings, instrumentation keys, and API keys to the console, so points are deducted.
Installation, authentication, CRUD-style workflows, and partial HTTP error handling are covered. However, there are no skill-specific tests or reproducible validation, dependencies and compatibility assumptions are incomplete, GetDefaultSubscriptionAsync().Result may introduce synchronous blocking, and abnormal-input/API-version handling is thin. Under static calibration the score cannot exceed 10, so points are deducted.
The name, audience, and trigger phrases are reasonably clear, covering Application Insights resource management, web tests, and workbooks. Non-fit scenarios, input/output contracts, permission prerequisites, and trigger boundaries are not defined, and there is no Chinese-language or mainland-China reachability guidance, so points are deducted.
The skill has clear sections for installation, environment variables, authentication, workflows, type references, best practices, error handling, related SDKs, and references; it declares MIT licensing, author, and version. It lacks FAQs, known limitations, a changelog, explicit maintenance responsibility, and a clear update path, while version/API compatibility guidance is limited, so points are deducted.
The examples cover major Application Insights resource lifecycle tasks and provide directly adaptable C# snippets. However, placeholders, required permissions, and prerequisite resources are not fully specified; the API-key and multi-step web-test examples create sensitive-data concerns; and there is no skill-specific execution evidence or comparison with alternatives. Under static calibration the score cannot exceed 7, so points are deducted.
NuGet, API, product-documentation, and GitHub-source references provide some traceability. The supplied material contains no skill-specific test suite, CI result, or third-party execution evidence, so key paths remain statically inferred and only limited credit is justified.
- Do not print connection strings, instrumentation keys, API keys, or test credentials to production logs or consoles; use Key Vault, managed identity, and secure configuration instead.
- Update and delete examples cause external Azure resource changes; add explicit confirmation, authorization checks, auditing, and recovery procedures before execution.
- Compile and validate the samples against the current Azure.ResourceManager.ApplicationInsights and Azure.Identity versions, including subscription retrieval, API signatures, and web-test configuration.
What does this skill do, and when should you use it?
This skill helps .NET developers manage Azure Application Insights resources with the Azure Resource Manager SDK. It covers component provisioning and updates, connection strings and identifiers, API keys, URL Ping and multi-step web tests, workbooks, and linked storage accounts. Authentication examples use Azure.Identity with DefaultAzureCredential or a directly selected credential. It is a fit for code-driven Azure monitoring configuration, but it is not a replacement for the Application Insights telemetry SDK.
Shows how to install Azure.ResourceManager.ApplicationInsights and Azure.Identity, configure subscription, resource-group, component-name, and credential environment variables, and use C# with ArmClient to create, retrieve, update, list, and delete Application Insights resources. It also demonstrates creating API keys, URL Ping and multi-step web tests, shared workbooks, and linked storage accounts, plus reading connection strings, instrumentation keys, and App IDs. The examples include handling HTTP 400, 409, and general Azure request failures.
- A .NET platform developer needs to provision a workspace-based Application Insights component with retention, sampling, tagging, and network settings.
- An application team needs homepage availability checks or multi-step login-flow tests from multiple Azure test locations.
- An operations team needs to create shared monitoring workbooks containing KQL-based performance charts.
- A platform engineer needs to enumerate, update, or delete Application Insights components and web tests in a resource group.
- An ASP.NET Core developer needs to connect application telemetry to an existing Application Insights component.
What are this skill's strengths and limitations?
- Covers the main resource-management workflows for components, API keys, web tests, workbooks, and linked storage.
- Provides copyable C# examples for Azure.Identity authentication, resource hierarchy, asynchronous ARM operations, and error handling.
- States the SDK version as v1.0.0 GA and the API version as 2022-06-15.
- Includes guidance on workspace-based components, Log Analytics linkage, sampling, retention, tags, and multi-location tests.
- Focuses on resource management rather than complete telemetry collection, querying, or alert implementation.
- Requires an Azure subscription, resource group, and Azure resources; the source does not provide a cost or permissions matrix.
- The supplied source does not show test coverage for this individual skill.
- Several examples contain placeholders and sample credential fields that require secure production configuration.
How do you install this skill?
From a .NET project, run:
dotnet add package Azure.ResourceManager.ApplicationInsights
dotnet add package Azure.Identity
Place the skill folder in the selected agent's skill directory. The repository README provides this collection installation command: npx skills add microsoft/skills. The source does not document the enablement or selection procedure for this individual skill in every agent.
How do you use this skill?
In a coding agent that supports the skill, use a request containing terms such as “Application Insights,” “App Insights,” “APM,” “web tests,” or “workbooks.” Example: “Create a workspace-based Application Insights component with Azure.ResourceManager.ApplicationInsights and configure retention and sampling.” Set AZURE_SUBSCRIPTION_ID, AZURE_RESOURCE_GROUP, and AZURE_APPINSIGHTS_NAME; when DefaultAzureCredential is used in production, also set AZURE_TOKEN_CREDENTIALS=prod.
How does this skill compare with similar options?
The skill explicitly distinguishes Azure.ResourceManager.ApplicationInsights from Microsoft.ApplicationInsights, Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.AspNetCore, and Azure.Monitor.OpenTelemetry.Exporter. This skill is for managing Azure resources; the related packages target telemetry collection, ASP.NET Core integration, or OpenTelemetry export.