Root Cause Analysis

Root Cause Analysis with Kopai

Debug production issues from telemetry (traces, logs, metrics). Kopai's analytical power — error rate, throughput, latency, group-by, time-series bucketing — lives in the SDK query API, which the CLI does not expose. So lead every investigation by writing a short TypeScript script; the CLI stays as a quick-lookup fallback.

Prerequisites

• Services are sending OpenTelemetry data to Kopai (see the otel-instrumentation skill).
• @kopai/sdk is installed in the project: npm i @kopai/sdk (it ships the query API and the .kopairc reader).

Code mode (recommended)

Connect — clientFromConfig() reads .kopairc exactly like the CLI:

import { clientFromConfig } from "@kopai/sdk/node";
// Reads ./.kopairc then ~/.kopairc; defaults to http://localhost:8000.
// Override any field: clientFromConfig({ url, token, configPath, timeout }).
const client = clientFromConfig();

Run — npx tsx rca.mts. Use the .mts extension: it is always an ES module, so top-level await works without depending on the host project's package.json "type". (If tsx is missing: node --experimental-strip-types rca.mts.)

Build a query with kq, run it with client.query(q). client.query(q) is the single clean way to run any built query and is fully typed — rows autocomplete and typos are compile errors. Aggregate queries return { data }; raw queries return { data, nextCursor }. Result rows are fully typed — iterate data directly and never cast to any/any[]. Aggregate measure values are number (so row.error_rate * 100 just works — no String(...)/cast), grouped dimensions are present (row["service.name"]), and .timeSeries() rows add bucket_start:

const { data } = await client.query(q); // typed rows — do NOT write `data as any[]`
for (const row of data) {
  console.log(
    row["service.name"],
    `${(row.error_rate * 100).toFixed(1)}%`,
    row.rps
  );
}

Output — stdout is your result. End with console.log(JSON.stringify(data, null, 2)), and wrap .build() + the query call in try/catch:

import { kq, KopaiQueryBuildError } from "@kopai/sdk";
try {
  const q = kq.traces
    .aggregate() /* … */
    .build();
  const { data } = await client.query(q);
  console.log(JSON.stringify(data, null, 2));
} catch (e) {
  if (e instanceof KopaiQueryBuildError)
    console.error(e.issues); // {path,message}[]
  else throw e;
}

Backend caveats & gotchas (read before querying)

• Every query needs a time window — .timeRelative("1h") or .timeAbsolute(startISO, endISO). Lookback/granularity match ^[1-9]\d*[smhdw]$ ("30s", "15m", "2h", "7d").
• StatusCode is exactly "Unset" | "Ok" | "Error" (title case). Successful spans are usually "Unset", not "Ok". This enum is type-checked: a wrong value like "ERROR" is a compile error, so the casing trap is caught for you. Prefer the errorRate measure (counts errors server-side) over filtering the raw value anyway.
• Use service.name (dotted), never ServiceName. ServiceName is not a queryable column — filtering on it silently matches nothing. (In result rows the value comes back keyed as you grouped it, e.g. row["service.name"].)
• Empty result on a busy system ≈ a wrong column/value, not real absence. Before concluding "no errors / no data", re-check the column name and value casing — silent empties are the #1 way to reach a false "all healthy" conclusion.
• Percentiles (p50–p999) are ClickHouse-only. On SQLite they fail at query time (KopaiError: Percentile measures … not yet supported on the sqlite backend). Lead latency with avg/max of Duration; treat percentiles as a ClickHouse upgrade in try/catch.
• Duration filters accept duration strings with units s/m/h/d/w — f.gt("Duration", "1s"), f.lte("Duration", "2h") (also gte/lt). No sub-second units; for sub-second thresholds pass a nanosecond number. (Result rows still report Duration in nanoseconds — avg/max of Duration come back in ns: 1ms = 1e6, 1s = 1e9.)
• Metric queries choose the type up front: kq.metrics("Gauge")…, kq.metrics("Sum")… (type ∈ "Gauge" | "Sum" | "Histogram" | "ExponentialHistogram" | "Summary"). The builder arg auto-pins the MetricType, so no manual .where(f => f.eq("MetricType", …)). Value columns are typed per type: Gauge/Sum → "Value"; Histogram/ExponentialHistogram → "Count" | "Sum" | "Min" | "Max"; Summary → "Count" | "Sum".
• searchTraces/searchLogs/searchMetrics are async iterables (auto-paginate) — consume with for await (const row of client.searchLogs({ … })) { … }, do not await them as an array. For a single page use searchTracesPage/searchLogsPage/searchMetricsPage → { data, nextCursor }. Limits: kq .limit() caps at 10000; search* filters cap at 1000.

RCA Workflow

1. Find the failing work — rank services by error rate and throughput. errorRate handles StatusCode server-side, so you never guess the value:

   const q = kq.traces
     .aggregate()
     .measure((m) => m.errorRate("error_rate"))
     .measure((m) => m.throughput("rps"))
     .measure((m) => m.count("spans"))
     .dimension("service.name")
     .timeRelative("1h")
     .summary()
     .orderByMeasure("error_rate", "desc")
     .build();
   const { data } = await client.query(q);
   

   For log-first triage, pull error-level logs by SeverityNumber >= 17 (catches ERROR/FATAL regardless of text casing): client.query(kq.logs.raw().where(f => f.gte("SeverityNumber", 17)).timeRelative("1h").limit(50).build()). See workflow-find-errors.

2. Get full trace context — const spans = await client.getTrace(traceId). Inspect Duration (bottlenecks), ParentSpanId (call chain), StatusMessage, SpanKind. See workflow-get-context.

3. Correlate logs to the trace — client.query(kq.logs.raw().where(f => f.eq("TraceId", traceId)).timeRelative("1h").build()) (or iterate client.searchLogs({ traceId })). Look for the earliest error and its stack trace. See workflow-correlate-logs.

4. Quantify impact / pinpoint onset — the upgrade the CLI can't do. Bucket the metric over time to see when it started and how wide the blast radius is. Watch the retention floor: if the earliest bucket is already elevated, the true onset is at or before it — say so rather than calling the floor a "step change":

   const q = kq.traces
     .aggregate()
     .measure((m) => m.errorRate("error_rate"))
     .measure((m) => m.avg("Duration", "avg_ns"))
     .measure((m) => m.max("Duration", "max_ns"))
     .dimension("service.name")
     .timeRelative("3h")
     .timeSeries("5m")
     .orderByMeasure("error_rate", "desc")
     .build();
   const { data } = await client.query(q);
   

   When the signal is a metric rather than a trace, choose the type up front and let it auto-pin MetricType — e.g. bucket a Gauge over time:

   const q = kq
     .metrics("Gauge")
     .aggregate()
     .measure((m) => m.avg("Value", "avg_value"))
     .where((f) => f.eq("MetricName", "process.cpu.utilization"))
     .timeRelative("3h")
     .timeSeries("5m")
     .build();
   const { data } = await client.query(q);
   

   See workflow-check-metrics.

5. Present findings — root cause with evidence (specific TraceIds, log entries, metric deltas), blast radius, and a suggested fix. Offer to build an incident dashboard (see the create-dashboard skill). See workflow-identify-cause.

Quick Example

// rca-triage.mts — run: npx tsx rca-triage.mts
import { kq, KopaiQueryBuildError } from "@kopai/sdk";
import { clientFromConfig } from "@kopai/sdk/node";
const client = clientFromConfig();

try {
  const q = kq.traces
    .aggregate()
    .measure((m) => m.errorRate("error_rate"))
    .measure((m) => m.throughput("rps"))
    .measure((m) => m.avg("Duration", "avg_ns"))
    .measure((m) => m.max("Duration", "max_ns"))
    .measure((m) => m.count("spans"))
    .dimension("service.name")
    .timeRelative("1h")
    .summary()
    .orderByMeasure("error_rate", "desc")
    .build();

  const { data } = await client.query(q); // typed rows
  console.log(JSON.stringify(data, null, 2));
} catch (e) {
  if (e instanceof KopaiQueryBuildError) console.error(e.issues);
  else throw e;
}

Rules

1. Workflow (CRITICAL)

• workflow-find-errors - Find error traces and error-level logs
• workflow-get-context - Get full trace context
• workflow-correlate-logs - Correlate logs with a trace
• workflow-check-metrics - Quantify impact with aggregate/time-series queries
• workflow-identify-cause - Identify root cause & present findings

2. Patterns (HIGH)

• pattern-http-errors - HTTP error debugging
• pattern-slow-requests - Slow request analysis
• pattern-distributed - Distributed failure tracing
• pattern-log-driven - Log-driven investigation

Read rules/<rule-name>.md for details.

Tips

1. Start from the aggregate (error rate / latency by service), then drill into one trace.
2. Prefer the errorRate measure over filtering StatusCode (counted server-side).
3. Run any built query with client.query(q) — it is fully typed (rows autocomplete, typos compile-error).
4. Filter Duration with strings (f.gt("Duration", "1s")); result rows still report Duration in nanoseconds. The earliest error in a trace chain is usually closest to root cause.
5. Use .timeSeries(granularity) to find when a regression started — and don't mistake the retention floor for the onset.
6. For metrics, pick the type up front — kq.metrics("Gauge")… (auto-pins MetricType, types the value columns).
7. On SQLite, latency = avg/max of Duration; switch to p95/p99 on ClickHouse.

CLI fallback (quick one-offs)

The CLI is fine for a single lookup, but has no query/aggregation command. Note the StatusCode value is the literal "Error".

npx @kopai/cli traces search --status-code Error --limit 20 --json
npx @kopai/cli traces get <traceId> --json
npx @kopai/cli logs search --trace-id <traceId> --severity-min 17 --json
npx @kopai/cli metrics discover --json

References

• trace-filters - Trace columns, filter/measure ops, containers
• log-filters - Log columns, severity model, filter ops
• metric-filters - Metric columns, MetricType pin, aggregations