configuring-opentelemetry-dotnet

A guide to adding OpenTelemetry observability to ASP.NET Core applications. OpenTelemetry records traces, metrics, and logs so developers can see how requests move through services.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to install the .NET packages, configure distributed tracing, create custom metrics or spans, connect exporters, and troubleshoot trace context propagation.
Why use it?
It helps diagnose slow or failing requests and follow one operation across multiple services by exporting telemetry to systems such as an OTLP collector, Aspire dashboard, or Jaeger.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/managedcode/dotnet-skills/configuring-opentelemetry-dotnet
Any agent
npx skills add managedcode/dotnet-skills --skill configuring-opentelemetry-dotnet
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/managedcode/dotnet-skills

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 55 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 2,424 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin 100% copy Near-identical to another mod in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00055 $0.02424
Opus 5 $0.00028 $0.01212
Sonnet 5 $0.00011 $0.00485
Haiku 4.5 $0.00006 $0.00242

Measured 3d ago against content hash 51e763e7b387, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

configuring-opentelemetry-dotnet scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 3d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

Origin

This is a copy

100% identical to configuring-opentelemetry-dotnet — 0 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

catalog/Frameworks/Official-DotNet-ASPNetCore/skills/configuring-opentelemetry-dotnet/SKILL.md · 290 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 290 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Configuring OpenTelemetry in .NET

When to Use

  • Adding distributed tracing to an ASP.NET Core application
  • Setting up OpenTelemetry exporters (OTLP is the primary protocol; Jaeger accepts OTLP natively; Prometheus OTLP ingestion requires explicit opt-in)
  • Creating custom metrics or trace spans for business operations
  • Troubleshooting distributed trace context propagation across services

When Not to Use

  • The user wants application-level logging only (use ILogger, Serilog)
  • The user is using Application Insights SDK directly (different API)
  • The user needs APM with a commercial vendor's proprietary SDK

Inputs

Input Required Description
ASP.NET Core project Yes The application to instrument
Observability backend No Where to export: OTLP collector, Aspire dashboard, Jaeger (accepts OTLP natively)

Workflow

Step 1: Install the correct packages

There are many OpenTelemetry NuGet packages. Install exactly these:

# Core SDK + ASP.NET Core instrumentation + logging integration
dotnet add package OpenTelemetry.Extensions.Hosting
dotnet add package OpenTelemetry.Instrumentation.AspNetCore
dotnet add package OpenTelemetry.Instrumentation.Http

# Exporter
dotnet add package OpenTelemetry.Exporter.OpenTelemetryProtocol  # OTLP exporter for traces, metrics, AND logs

# Optional — dev/local debugging only (do NOT include in production deployments)
# dotnet add package OpenTelemetry.Exporter.Console

Do NOT install OpenTelemetry alone — you need OpenTelemetry.Extensions.Hosting for proper DI integration.

Optional: additional auto-instrumentation packages

Install only the packages that match the libraries your application uses:

dotnet add package OpenTelemetry.Instrumentation.SqlClient           # SQL Server queries
dotnet add package OpenTelemetry.Instrumentation.EntityFrameworkCore  # EF Core
dotnet add package OpenTelemetry.Instrumentation.GrpcNetClient       # gRPC calls
dotnet add package OpenTelemetry.Instrumentation.Runtime             # GC, thread pool metrics

Read the full file on GitHub · 290 lines

Files

What ships with it

1 file beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 3d ago First seen · 290 lines · 55 tokens per session scan A 51e763e7b387

Subscribe to this mod's changes

configuring-opentelemetry-dotnet is a skill published in the GitHub repository managedcode/dotnet-skills (477 stars, last pushed 3d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 55 tokens to every session and 2,424 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 100% identical to configuring-opentelemetry-dotnet, differing in 0 lines, and is treated as a copy.

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