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

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