Launcher, a Lightstep Distro for OpenTelemetry 🚀
What is Launcher?
Launcher is a configuration layer that chooses default values for configuration options that many OpenTelemetry users want. It provides a single function in each language to simplify discovery of the options and components available to users. The goal of Launcher is to help users that aren't familiar with OpenTelemetry quickly ramp up on what they need to get going and instrument.
Getting started
npm i lightstep-opentelemetry-launcher-nodeConfigure
Minimal setup
const {
lightstep,
opentelemetry,
} = require('lightstep-opentelemetry-launcher-node');
const sdk = lightstep.configureOpenTelemetry({
accessToken: 'YOUR ACCESS TOKEN',
serviceName: 'otel-example',
});
sdk.start().then(() => {
// Make sure to load any modules you use after otel is started so that it
// has its module loading hooks in place. In general, this is the right place
// to require your code.
require('./server-main.js').startServer();
});Customization
While the built-in automatic instrumentation will provide good coverage for many users, there are scenarios where users may want to write custom instrumentation, or enrich the existing telemetry. Below are links to some resources about the OpenTelemetry API and some examples of its usage:
Configuration Options
| Config Option | Env Variable | Required | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| serviceName | LS_SERVICE_NAME | y | - |
| serviceVersion | LS_SERVICE_VERSION | n | unknown |
| spanEndpoint | OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_SPAN_ENDPOINT | n | https://ingest.lightstep.com/traces/otlp/v0.6 |
| accessToken | LS_ACCESS_TOKEN | n | - |
| logLevel | OTEL_LOG_LEVEL | n | info |
| propagators | OTEL_PROPAGATORS | n | b3 |
| resource | OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES | n | - |
Additional Options
In addition the options below, the configureOpenTelemetry function will take any configuration
options supported by the OpenTelemetry Node SDK package and its return value is a NodeSDK instance.
See the OpenTelemetry Node SDK documentation for more details.
Principles behind Launcher
100% interoperability with OpenTelemetry
One of the key principles behind putting together Launcher is to make lives of OpenTelemetry users easier, this means that there is no special configuration that requires users to install Launcher in order to use OpenTelemetry. It also means that any users of Launcher can leverage the flexibility of configuring OpenTelemetry as they need.
Validation
Another decision we made with launcher is to provide end users with a layer of validation of their configuration. This provides us the ability to give feedback to our users faster, so they can start collecting telemetry sooner.
Start using it today in Go, Java, Javascript and Python and let us know what you think!
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