Dynatrace Notebook Skill

Overview

• Sections: Modular blocks organizing markdown and query content
• DQL Queries: Executable queries with cached results and visualizations
• Markdown: Documentation, context, and narrative content
• Timeframes: Default and section-specific time ranges
• Metadata: Ownership, versioning, and modification tracking

• Creating investigation notebooks or analysis templates
• Modifying existing notebooks (queries, sections, visualizations, markdown)
• Querying notebook JSON to extract DQL queries or analyze structure
• Analyzing notebook purpose, investigation workflow, and data coverage
• Building collaborative documentation with embedded analytics

1. Creating - Build notebooks from scratch for investigations, documentation, or query libraries
2. Modifying - Update sections, queries, visualizations, markdown, or timeframes
3. Querying - Extract data from notebook JSON or search Document Store
4. Analyzing - Understand structure, purpose, investigation workflow, and content gaps

Notebook Document Structure

{
  "id": "notebook-abc123",
  "name": "Production Investigation",
  "type": "notebook",
  "owner": "user-uuid",
  "isPrivate": false,
  "version": 42,
  "modificationInfo": {...},
  "content": {
    "version": "7",
    "defaultTimeframe": {
      "from": "now()-2h",
      "to": "now()"
    },
    "sections": [...]
  }
}

• .id

  - Document ID (UUID or semantic like "dynatrace.notebooks.getting-started")

• .name

  - Notebook display name

• .type

  - Always "notebook"

• .owner

  - Owner UUID

• .isPrivate

  - Visibility (true = private, false = shared)

• .version

  - Document version (incremental, auto-managed)

• .modificationInfo

  - Creation/modification timestamps

.content

• .content.version

  - Content schema version (currently "7")

• .content.defaultTimeframe

  - Default time range for all DQL sections

• .content.defaultSegments

  - Default filter segments (usually empty)

• .content.sections

  - Array of markdown and DQL query sections

.content.*

When to Load References

• Start here: SKILL.md provides core concepts and quick-start examples
• Load references on-demand: Each reference file covers a specific deep-dive topic
• Context efficiency: Progressive loading enables task completion without external documentation

1. Try answering with just SKILL.md first
2. If you need detailed specifications or advanced patterns, load the relevant reference file
3. The "References" section below maps each file to its use case

💡 Tip: Reference files are linked throughout this document with

→

arrows pointing to when you should load them.

Working with Notebooks

• Creating & Updating notebooks → Load

  references/create-update.md

  for complete workflow, test-first approach, DQL query validation, and modification patterns
• Analyzing notebooks → Load

  references/analyzing.md

  for structure analysis, JSON extraction, and query execution

1. Always load the relevant reference file first
2. Load relevant skills for query generation (MANDATORY - do not invent queries)
3. Test and validate all DQL queries before adding to notebook (see create-update.md)
4. Validate notebook JSON against schema before save/upload (see Schema Validation below)

Notebook Structure

Root Properties

{
  "version": "7",              // Content schema version (current: "7")
  "sections": []               // Array of markdown and DQL sections
}

• defaultTimeframe

  - Default time range for all DQL sections

• defaultSegments

  - Default filter segments (usually empty)

Sections Overview

📝 For detailed section specifications, visualization settings, and configuration options, load

references/sections.md

{"type": "markdown", "markdown": "# Content"}

{"type": "dql", "state": {"input": {"value": "query"}, "visualization": "table"}}

table

lineChart

barChart

pieChart

singleValue

areaChart

Schema Validation

references/create-update.md

notebook-schema.json

References

Common Patterns & Best Practices

• Investigation: Markdown context → DQL queries → Analysis → Findings
• Documentation: Narrative with embedded queries demonstrating concepts
• Query Library: Collection of reusable DQL patterns with explanations

• Use unique UUIDs for section IDs · Start with markdown context · Set content version="7" · Use relative timeframes (

  now()-2h

  ) · Omit result objects when creating sections · Order sections logically · Add markdown between query sections for context

• Default timeframe: Sets baseline for all DQL sections
• Section-specific: Override default for specific queries (e.g., longer lookback for trends)
• Relative:

  now()-2h

  ,

  now()-7d

  for dynamic ranges
• Absolute: ISO timestamps for historical analysis

Related Skills

• dt-dql-essentials - DQL query syntax, functions, and optimization
• dt-app-dashboards - Dashboard creation for operational monitoring (vs notebooks for investigation)