Auditing Table Statistics

---
name: auditing-table-statistics
description: Audits optimizer table statistics for staleness, missing coverage, and data quality issues using SHOW STATISTICS. Use when diagnosing poor query performance, unexpected plan changes, or after bulk data changes to identify stale statistics requiring refresh via CREATE STATISTICS.
compatibility: Requires SQL access with any privilege on target tables (SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, or admin). Uses SHOW STATISTICS (production-safe, read-only).
metadata:
  author: cockroachdb
  version: "1.0"
---

# Auditing Table Statistics

Audits optimizer table statistics for staleness, missing column coverage, and row count drift to diagnose poor query performance caused by outdated or incomplete statistics. Uses `SHOW STATISTICS` for read-only SQL analysis of table-level and column-level statistics freshness, entirely without requiring DB Console access.

**Complement to profiling-statement-fingerprints:** This skill diagnoses optimizer statistics issues; for identifying historically slow queries, see [profiling-statement-fingerprints](../profiling-statement-fingerprints/SKILL.md).

## Prerequisites

- SQL connection with any privilege on target tables
- Automatic statistics collection enabled (default): `sql.stats.automatic_collection.enabled = true`

**Related skills:** [profiling-statement-fingerprints](../profiling-statement-fingerprints/SKILL.md) for historical query analysis, [triaging-live-sql-activity](../triaging-live-sql-activity/SKILL.md) for live triage.

## Core Concepts

**CockroachDB-specific defaults:**