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Send custom app telemetry (OTLP)

Your applications can send their own telemetry through the agent so it is signed and forwarded to AtherOps with the rest of the host's data.

Traces: send OTLP to the agent​

The simplest path: point your app's OpenTelemetry exporter at the agent's OTLP receiver on the same host. This is the recommended way to get app traces in.

export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=http://localhost:4318
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL=http/protobuf

Full walkthrough: Enable traces.

Custom metrics​

Host metrics are collected automatically by the agent's hostmetrics receiver. The shipped pipeline does not add an extra OTLP-metrics receiver, so the agent's local OTLP port is for traces. To get application metrics into AtherOps you have two options:

  1. Expose Prometheus metrics from your app and scrape them with your own tooling, then forward; or
  2. Send directly to the AtherOps ingest API using the documented HMAC scheme.

Both the metrics endpoint (POST /ingest, Prometheus text) and the OTLP trace / log endpoints are documented in the advanced Ingest API reference, including the exact HMAC signing scheme. This is an advanced path; most users only need the host agent.

Sending directly to the ingest API means you handle HMAC signing yourself and bypass the agent. The agent's loopback auth-proxy exists precisely so you don't have to. Only do this if you have a system that can't run the agent.

See also​