Send OpenTelemetry traces and logs

Lampwick takes OpenTelemetry traces and logs over OTLP/HTTP. Any app with an OpenTelemetry SDK can send them by setting a few environment variables, with no Lampwick package. We tested these setups end to end:

Stack	Setup	Requests	Errors → issues	Queries	Logs
Node.js (Express)	Zero-code: `--require` the auto-instrumentations	yes	yes, with stack trace	yes (`pg`)	via pino, winston or bunyan
Next.js	`instrumentation.ts` with `@vercel/otel`	yes	yes, stack trace points into `.next/`	with `PgInstrumentation`	not captured
Python (FastAPI, Django)	Zero-code: `opentelemetry-instrument`	yes	yes, with stack trace	yes (`sqlite3`, Django ORM)	yes, `logging`

Go, Ruby, .NET and Java should work the same way, because the endpoint only speaks the protocol, but we haven't tested them yet. Ruby's SDK needs Ruby 3.3 or later.

Requirements

The project's ingest token, from the Connect your app card on the project's Settings page. Only team owners see it.
An OpenTelemetry SDK that exports OTLP over HTTP. Lampwick doesn't accept gRPC.

Set the environment variables

Set these wherever your app's environment lives (.env, your process manager, your host's dashboard):

.env

OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=https://app.lampwick.dev
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL=http/protobuf
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS=x-lampwick-token=YOUR_PROJECT_TOKEN
OTEL_SERVICE_NAME=my-app
OTEL_METRICS_EXPORTER=none
OTEL_LOGS_EXPORTER=otlp

YOUR_PROJECT_TOKEN is the project's ingest token. The SDK adds /v1/traces and /v1/logs to the endpoint itself. Authorization=Bearer%20YOUR_PROJECT_TOKEN works as the header too.

OTEL_METRICS_EXPORTER=none matters: Lampwick doesn't take metrics, and without it most SDKs try to send them every minute and log an error each time.

What shows up where

OpenTelemetry	In Lampwick
Server span (`SpanKind.SERVER`)	Requests, one row per method and `http.route`
Database span (`db.system`)	Queries, one row per statement; linked to the request it ran in
Client span with an HTTP method	Outgoing requests, one row per host
Consumer / producer span	Jobs / Queued jobs
Root internal span	Commands
`exception` span event	Issues, grouped by type and the top 3 frames of your own code
Log record	Logs, linked to the request it was written in
Log record with `exception.*` attributes	Logs and Issues (handled)
`enduser.id` or `user.id` attribute	Users

Lampwick doesn't store middleware, router and other internal child spans, and doesn't count them as events. Connection spans such as pg.connect aren't queries and are left out too.

An error is one occurrence per trace. SDKs often record the same error on several spans (Express 5 records it 3 times), and frameworks also log it (Django's django.request logger), so Lampwick keeps the first copy. The issue counts as unhandled when any copy came from a failed span.

Check that it works

Start your app with the variables set and open a few pages.
Spans arrive within about 5 seconds: the SDKs export in batches. Open Requests in the project.
Lampwick answers each export with 200. A 401 means the token is wrong, a 415 that the SDK sends gRPC or another content type.

Limits

Protobuf (application/x-protobuf) or JSON (application/json), optionally gzip-compressed.
No gRPC and no metrics: /v1/metrics answers 404.
Spans and log records count as events like everything else; spans Lampwick doesn't store don't count.
Stack traces are parsed from exception.stacktrace for Node, Python, JVM, .NET, Go, Ruby and PHP. Source maps aren't applied, so bundled code shows bundle file names.

Troubleshooting

What you see	Cause and fix
Nothing arrives, and the app logs `401`	The token in `OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS` is wrong or has spaces around it. Copy it again from Settings.
Nothing arrives, and the app logs `415` or a connection error on port 4317	The SDK uses gRPC. Set `OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL=http/protobuf`.
The app logs metric export errors	Set `OTEL_METRICS_EXPORTER=none`.
Requests show up, logs don't	The language's logging bridge isn't on; see the page for your stack.
Requests show the URL but no route	The framework instrumentation isn't loaded, so only the HTTP server span exists without `http.route`.