OpenTelemetry Collector

OpenTelemetry is an open-source observability framework for collecting, processing, and exporting telemetry data. OpenRouter can send traces to any backend that supports the OpenTelemetry Protocol (OTLP), including Axiom, Jaeger, Grafana Tempo, and self-hosted collectors.

Step 1: Get your OTLP endpoint and credentials

Set up your OpenTelemetry-compatible backend and obtain the OTLP traces endpoint URL along with any required authentication headers.

For Axiom:

1. Create an Axiom account and dataset
2. Go to Settings > API Tokens and create a new token
3. Your endpoint is https://api.axiom.co/v1/traces
4. You’ll need headers: Authorization: Bearer xaat-xxx and X-Axiom-Dataset: your-dataset

For self-hosted collectors:

1. Deploy an OpenTelemetry Collector with an OTLP receiver
2. Configure the receiver to listen on a publicly accessible endpoint
3. Note the endpoint URL (typically ending in /v1/traces)

Step 2: Enable Broadcast in OpenRouter

Go to Settings > Observability and toggle Enable Broadcast.

Step 3: Configure OpenTelemetry Collector

Click the edit icon next to OpenTelemetry Collector and enter:

• Endpoint: Your OTLP traces endpoint URL (e.g., https://api.axiom.co/v1/traces or https://your-collector.example.com:4318/v1/traces)
• Headers (optional): Custom HTTP headers as a JSON object for authentication

Example headers for Axiom:

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{
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  "Authorization": "Bearer xaat-your-token",
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  "X-Axiom-Dataset": "your-dataset"
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}

Example headers for authenticated collectors:

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{
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  "Authorization": "Bearer your-token",
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  "X-Custom-Header": "value"
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}

Step 4: Test and save

Click Test Connection to verify the setup. The configuration only saves if the test passes.

Step 5: Send a test trace

Make an API request through OpenRouter and view the trace in your OpenTelemetry backend.

Compatible backends

The OpenTelemetry Collector destination works with any backend that supports OTLP over HTTP, including:

• Axiom - Cloud-native log and trace management
• Jaeger - Distributed tracing platform
• Grafana Tempo - High-scale distributed tracing backend
• Honeycomb - Observability for distributed systems
• Lightstep - Cloud-native observability platform
• Self-hosted OpenTelemetry Collector - Route traces to multiple backends

Custom Metadata

Custom metadata from the trace field is sent as span attributes in the OTLP payload. How this metadata appears depends on your downstream backend.

Supported Metadata Keys

Example

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{
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  "model": "openai/gpt-4o",
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  "messages": [{ "role": "user", "content": "Hello!" }],
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  "user": "user_12345",
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  "session_id": "session_abc",
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  "trace": {
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    "trace_id": "app_trace_001",
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    "trace_name": "Chat Handler",
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    "generation_name": "Generate Response",
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    "environment": "staging",
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    "deployment": "us-east-1"
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  }
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}

Span Attributes

Custom metadata keys are included as span attributes under the trace.metadata.* namespace. For example, environment from the trace field becomes trace.metadata.environment in the OTLP payload.

Standard GenAI semantic conventions (gen_ai.*) are used for model, token usage, and cost attributes.

Additional Context

• The user field maps to user.id in span attributes
• The session_id field maps to session.id in span attributes
• Your downstream backend determines how these attributes are indexed, queried, and displayed
• Using parent_span_id lets you link OpenRouter traces to your application’s existing distributed traces

Privacy Mode

When Privacy Mode is enabled for this destination, prompt and completion content is excluded from traces. All other trace data — token usage, costs, timing, model information, and custom metadata — is still sent normally. See Privacy Mode for details.