
Description
Instrument any app with OpenTelemetry and ship metrics / logs / traces to Grafana Cloud or self-hosted Mimir / Loki / Tempo / Pyroscope. Covers SDK auto-instrumentation for Go, Java (Grafana JVM agent), Python (`opentelemetry-instrument`), Node.js, .NET (`Grafana.OpenTelemetry`), Beyla eBPF for zero-code; Grafana Cloud OTLP gateway + Basic-auth (instanceID + API key, base64); env-var config (`OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_*`, `OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES`); Alloy / OTel-Collector pipelines; Kubernetes Operator inject-annotations; and head + tail sampling. Use when instrumenting a service, pointing OTLP at Grafana Cloud, switching from Jaeger / Datadog / New Relic, choosing head- vs tail-sampling, or debugging "spans aren't showing in Explore" — even when the user says "auto-instrument my Java app", "send traces to Grafana", "what env vars do I set", "OTLP endpoint", or "Operator inject" without naming OpenTelemetry.
SKILL.md
OpenTelemetry with Grafana
Vendor-neutral instrumentation pipeline. Apps speak OTLP → Alloy (or direct) → Grafana Cloud (Mimir / Loki / Tempo / Pyroscope).
Backends
| Signal | Backend |
|---|---|
| Metrics | Grafana Mimir |
| Logs | Grafana Loki |
| Traces | Grafana Tempo |
| Profiles | Grafana Pyroscope |
Prerequisites
- Grafana Cloud stack OR self-hosted Mimir / Loki / Tempo
- Cloud OTLP endpoint:
https://otlp-gateway-<region>.grafana.net/otlp - Basic-auth credentials: numeric instance ID + API token with
MetricsPublisher+LogsPublisher+TracesPublisher - An app to instrument
Common Workflows
1. Authenticate to the Grafana Cloud OTLP endpoint
# 1. Build the auth header
INSTANCE_ID=123456
API_KEY="glc_eyJ..."
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=https://otlp-gateway-prod-us-east-0.grafana.net/otlp
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL=http/protobuf
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS="Authorization=Basic $(echo -n "${INSTANCE_ID}:${API_KEY}" | base64)"
export OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES="service.name=myapp,service.namespace=myteam,deployment.environment=prod"
# 2. Smoke-test creds with a curl POST against the OTLP traces endpoint (empty body)
curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}\n" \
-X POST -H "Content-Type: application/x-protobuf" \
-H "Authorization: Basic $(echo -n "${INSTANCE_ID}:${API_KEY}" | base64)" \
"$OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT/v1/traces" --data-binary '\n'
# Expect 400 (malformed payload) — NOT 401 (auth) or 404 (wrong endpoint).
2. Auto-instrument a Java app + verify
# 1. Download the Grafana JVM agent (single jar)
curl -sLO https://github.com/grafana/grafana-opentelemetry-java/releases/latest/download/grafana-opentelemetry-java.jar
# 2. Run with the agent + env from step 1
java -javaagent:./grafana-opentelemetry-java.jar -jar myapp.jar
# 3. Generate traffic, then verify in Grafana → Explore → Tempo:
# TraceQL: { resource.service.name = "myapp" }
# Expect spans within ~30s. Also verify metrics:
# PromQL: count by (service_name)({service_name="myapp"})
3. Auto-instrument a Python app
pip install "opentelemetry-distro[otlp]"
opentelemetry-bootstrap -a install
# Same env vars as step 1, then:
opentelemetry-instrument python app.py
# Verify the same way — Explore → Traces filter service.name=myapp.
4. Add Alloy as a buffering / sampling collector
# Application points at local Alloy (gRPC fastest)
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=http://localhost:4317
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL=grpc
# Alloy environment for forwarding to Cloud
export GRAFANA_CLOUD_OTLP_ENDPOINT=https://otlp-gateway-prod-us-east-0.grafana.net/otlp
export GRAFANA_CLOUD_INSTANCE_ID=$INSTANCE_ID
export GRAFANA_CLOUD_API_KEY=$API_KEY
alloy run /etc/alloy/config.alloy
# Verify Alloy received and forwarded
curl -s http://localhost:12345/metrics | grep otelcol_exporter_sent_spans
Full Alloy config + tail-sampling block + OTel Collector YAML + K8s Operator install: references/collector-config.md.
SDK-by-language details (Go full code, Node manual setup, .NET ASP.NET Core, all the env-var quirks): references/instrumentation.md.
5. Kubernetes — auto-inject via the Operator
apiVersion: opentelemetry.io/v1alpha1
kind: Instrumentation
metadata: { name: my-instrumentation }
spec:
exporter: { endpoint: http://otelcol:4317 }
propagators: [tracecontext, baggage]
java:
image: us-docker.pkg.dev/grafanalabs-global/docker-grafana-opentelemetry-java-prod/grafana-opentelemetry-java:2.3.0-beta.1
nodejs: {}
python: {}
Then annotate pods:
metadata:
annotations:
instrumentation.opentelemetry.io/inject-java: "true"
# or: inject-nodejs, inject-python, inject-dotnet
# Verify the operator injected the agent
kubectl describe pod <pod> | grep -A2 'opentelemetry-auto-instrumentation'
# Then run the same Grafana Explore checks.
Sampling — when to pick which
# Head sampling (cheap, decided at start; may lose rare errors)
export OTEL_TRACES_SAMPLER=parentbased_traceidratio
export OTEL_TRACES_SAMPLER_ARG=0.1 # 10%
Tail sampling (decides after seeing the whole trace — keep errors + sample the rest) requires an Alloy / OTel-Collector tail_sampling processor; full block in references/collector-config.md.
Key environment variables
| Variable | Example |
|---|---|
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT | https://otlp-gateway-prod-us-east-0.grafana.net/otlp |
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL | grpc or http/protobuf |
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS | Authorization=Basic <base64> |
OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES | service.name=app,service.namespace=team,deployment.environment=prod |
OTEL_SERVICE_NAME | shorthand for service.name |
OTEL_TRACES_SAMPLER / _ARG | parentbased_traceidratio / 0.1 |
Troubleshooting
- 401 from OTLP gateway → instance ID is not numeric, or API key missing publisher roles
- 404 → endpoint URL wrong (must end with
/otlp) - Spans missing → check
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOLmatches transport (Cloud OTLP gateway =http/protobuf, Alloy local =grpc) - Node.js auto-instrumentation broken after bundling → bundlers like
@vercel/nccdefeat the require hooks - Python under Gunicorn / uWSGI shows no spans → reinit OTel providers in a post-fork hook
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