Enabling OpenTelemetry for a Rust Agent

The golem-otlp-exporter is a built-in plugin that exports agent telemetry (traces, logs, metrics) to any OTLP-compatible collector via OTLP/HTTP. No plugin installation is needed — just enable it in the application manifest.

Step 1 — Enable the Plugin in golem.yaml

Add the plugin to the component (or agent) that should emit telemetry:

components:
  my-app:service:
    plugins:
      - name: golem-otlp-exporter
        version: "1.5.0"
        parameters:
          endpoint: "http://localhost:4318"
          signals: "traces,logs,metrics"

Plugin Parameters

Parameter	Required	Description
endpoint	Yes	OTLP collector base URL (e.g., http://localhost:4318)
signals	No	Comma-separated: traces, logs, metrics. Default: traces
headers	No	Comma-separated key=value HTTP headers (e.g., x-api-key=secret)
service-name-mode	No	agent-id (default) or agent-type

Step 2 — Deploy

golem deploy --yes

After deployment, newly created agents from this component automatically send telemetry to the configured collector.

What Gets Exported

Traces

Spans are created automatically for:

• Agent invocations
• RPC calls to other agents
• Outgoing HTTP requests

Trace and span IDs propagate from inbound HTTP requests (via code-first routes) and are included in outgoing HTTP request headers automatically.

Custom Spans

Use the golem::api::context bindings to create custom spans:

use golem_rust::bindings::golem::api::context;

let span = context::start_span("my-operation");
span.set_attribute("env", &context::AttributeValue::String("production".to_string()));
span.set_attributes(&[
    context::Attribute { key: "service".to_string(), value: context::AttributeValue::String("my-service".to_string()) },
    context::Attribute { key: "version".to_string(), value: context::AttributeValue::String("1.0".to_string()) },
]);

// ... do work ...

let ctx = context::current_context();
println!("trace_id: {}", ctx.trace_id());
span.finish();

Logs

When logs is included in signals, all log output is forwarded to the OTLP collector. See the golem-logging-rust skill for full logging guidance.

use log::debug;

println!("Hello from Rust!");
debug!("This is a debug log entry");

Metrics

When metrics is included in signals, the following metrics are exported:

Metric	Type	Description
golem_invocation_count	Counter	Number of agent method invocations
golem_invocation_duration_ns	Counter	Invocation duration
golem_invocation_fuel_consumed	Counter	Fuel consumed by invocations
golem_invocation_pending_count	Counter	Number of pending invocations
golem_host_call_count	Counter	Number of internal host calls
golem_log_count	Counter	Number of log entries emitted
golem_memory_initial_bytes	Gauge	Initially allocated memory
golem_memory_total_bytes	Gauge	Total allocated memory
golem_memory_growth_bytes	Counter	Memory growth since start
golem_component_size_bytes	Gauge	Component size in bytes
golem_error_count	Counter	Number of recorded errors
golem_interruption_count	Counter	Number of interrupt requests
golem_exit_count	Counter	Number of process exit signals
golem_restart_count	Counter	Number of times a fresh state was created
golem_resources_created	Counter	Number of internal resources created
golem_resources_dropped	Counter	Number of internal resources dropped
golem_resources_active	Gauge	Number of active internal resources
golem_update_success_count	Counter	Number of successful updates
golem_update_failure_count	Counter	Number of failed updates
golem_transaction_committed	Counter	Number of committed database transactions
golem_transaction_rolled_back	Counter	Number of rolled back database transactions
golem_snapshot_size_bytes	Counter	Snapshot size in bytes
golem_oplog_processor_lag	Gauge	Oplog processor delivery lag

Each metric includes service.name, golem.agent.id, golem.component.id, and golem.component.version attributes.

Local Observability Stack

The Golem repository includes a ready-made Docker Compose setup at docker-examples/otlp-collector/:

docker compose -f docker-examples/otlp-collector/docker-compose.yml up -d

This starts:

• OTel Collector on port 4318 (OTLP/HTTP)
• Jaeger on http://localhost:16686 (traces)
• Prometheus on http://localhost:9090 (metrics)
• Loki via Grafana (logs)
• Grafana on http://localhost:3000 (admin/admin)

Configure the plugin with endpoint: "http://localhost:4318" to use this stack.

Per-Environment Configuration

Use presets to vary the endpoint across environments:

components:
  my-app:service:
    plugins:
      - name: golem-otlp-exporter
        version: "1.5.0"
        parameters:
          endpoint: "http://localhost:4318"
          signals: "traces,logs,metrics"
    presets:
      production:
        pluginsMergeMode: replace
        plugins:
          - name: golem-otlp-exporter
            version: "1.5.0"
            parameters:
              endpoint: "https://otel.prod.example.com:4318"
              headers: "x-api-key={{ OTLP_API_KEY }}"
              signals: "traces,logs,metrics"

Key Points

• Built-in — no golem plugin register needed, just add to golem.yaml
• Deploy required — run golem deploy after adding the plugin configuration
• Trace context propagates automatically through HTTP routes and RPC calls
• Use context::start_span from golem_rust::bindings::golem::api::context for custom spans
• Plugin can be activated/deactivated per agent with golem agent activate-plugin / golem agent deactivate-plugin

Related Skills

• Load golem-manage-plugins for the general plugin installation model (manifest sections, CLI commands, priority, per-environment configuration)