---
title: "OpenTelemetry (OTLP) Monitoring"
description: "Point an OpenTelemetry exporter at Silly Development monitoring: OTLP over HTTP for metrics, traces and logs, with the same key and limits as the SDKs."
url: "https://sillydev.co.uk/docs/monitoring/opentelemetry"
updated: "2026-10-14"
---

Monitoring

# OpenTelemetry

Already instrumented with OpenTelemetry? Point the OTLP/HTTP exporter at your project's ingest address and use a server key.

[← Monitoring docs](https://sillydev.co.uk/docs/monitoring) · Updated 14 October 2026

**Browse the docs**

## Configure the exporter

Use OTLP over HTTP, in protobuf or JSON (gRPC is not accepted). The standard environment variables work with every OpenTelemetry SDK and with the Collector's `otlphttp` exporter.

Environment

```
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=https://ingest1.sillydev.co.uk/otlp
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS="Authorization=Bearer sdevm_1_…"
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL=http/protobuf
OTEL_SERVICE_NAME=orders-bot
```

## How it is converted

The `service.name`, `deployment.environment`, `service.version` and `service.instance.id` resource attributes name the app. Sums become counters (cumulative sums are turned into changes), gauges stay gauges, and histograms are re-bucketed into the same buckets the SDKs use; exponential histograms and summaries are not accepted. Attributes become tags, so the same series limit applies.

From traces, server spans become `http.server.duration`, using `http.route`, the method and the status code, so they fill the Performance tab; exception events on spans become errors, and spans over a second may be kept as slow operations. Other spans are dropped. From logs, records at ERROR or above become errors.

Read next

- [HTTP ingest API The JSON the SDKs send, for any language without one.](https://sillydev.co.uk/docs/monitoring/ingest-api)
- [Limits and retention What every project can send, and how long it is kept.](https://sillydev.co.uk/docs/monitoring/limits)
- [Keys Server keys, browser keys and the websites allowed to use them.](https://sillydev.co.uk/docs/monitoring/keys)