Triaging Live SQL Activity

Diagnoses live cluster performance issues by identifying currently active long-running queries, busy sessions, and active transactions. Uses SQL-only interfaces (SHOW statements and crdb_internal views) to provide immediate triage without requiring DB Console, HTTP endpoints, or Prometheus access.

When to Use This Skill

• Users report "the cluster is slow right now"
• High CPU or memory usage on cluster nodes
• Need to identify runaway queries or stuck transactions
• Want to find which applications/users are consuming resources
• Require immediate triage without DB Console access
• Need to generate SQL to cancel problematic sessions/queries

For historical performance analysis: Use profiling-statement-fingerprints to analyze query patterns over time, identify slow fingerprints, and investigate trends without needing live queries. For transaction-level analysis: Use profiling-transaction-fingerprints to analyze historical transaction retry patterns, commit latency trends, and statement composition. For background job monitoring: Use monitoring-background-jobs to monitor schema changes, backups, and automatic jobs that don't appear in SHOW CLUSTER STATEMENTS.

Prerequisites