Tracing instrumentation

When tracing is enabled, the Apitally SDK captures OpenTelemetry spans during request handling and attaches them to request logs. This allows you to see exactly what happened during each request, including database queries, HTTP calls to external services, and custom operations. If you have an existing OpenTelemetry setup, the SDK automatically registers itself as a span processor with the global TracerProvider. Otherwise, it creates its own. Any spans created using the standard OpenTelemetry API or by instrumentation libraries will be captured.

Enable tracing

To enable tracing, set CaptureTraces to true in your middleware configuration:

package main

import (
    apitally "github.com/apitally/apitally-go/chi"
    "github.com/go-chi/chi/v5"
)

func main() {
    r := chi.NewRouter()

    config := apitally.NewConfig("your-client-id")
    config.Env = "dev"
    config.RequestLogging.Enabled = true
    config.RequestLogging.CaptureTraces = true

    r.Use(apitally.Middleware(r, config))

    // ... rest of your code ...
}

package main

import (
    apitally "github.com/apitally/apitally-go/echo"
    "github.com/labstack/echo/v4"
)

func main() {
    e := echo.New()

    config := apitally.NewConfig("your-client-id")
    config.Env = "dev"
    config.RequestLogging.Enabled = true
    config.RequestLogging.CaptureTraces = true

    e.Use(apitally.Middleware(e, config))

    // ... rest of your code ...
}

package main

import (
    apitally "github.com/apitally/apitally-go/fiber"
    "github.com/gofiber/fiber/v2"
)

func main() {
    app := fiber.New()

    config := apitally.NewConfig("your-client-id")
    config.Env = "dev"
    config.RequestLogging.Enabled = true
    config.RequestLogging.CaptureTraces = true

    app.Use(apitally.Middleware(app, config))

    // ... rest of your code ...
}

package main

import (
    apitally "github.com/apitally/apitally-go/gin"
    "github.com/gin-gonic/gin"
)

func main() {
    r := gin.Default()

    config := apitally.NewConfig("your-client-id")
    config.Env = "dev"
    config.RequestLogging.Enabled = true
    config.RequestLogging.CaptureTraces = true

    r.Use(apitally.Middleware(r, config))

    // ... rest of your code ...
}

Instrument libraries

To capture spans from HTTP clients, database drivers, and other libraries, use the corresponding OpenTelemetry instrumentation libraries. For example, to instrument outgoing HTTP requests using otelhttp:

go get go.opentelemetry.io/contrib/instrumentation/net/http/otelhttp

import (
    "net/http"

    "go.opentelemetry.io/contrib/instrumentation/net/http/otelhttp"
)

client := &http.Client{
    Transport: otelhttp.NewTransport(http.DefaultTransport),
}

See the OpenTelemetry registry for a complete list of available instrumentation libraries.

Create custom spans

For custom operations that aren’t covered by library instrumentation, you can create spans manually using the standard OpenTelemetry API:

import (
    "context"

    "go.opentelemetry.io/otel"
    "go.opentelemetry.io/otel/attribute"
)

var tracer = otel.Tracer("my-app")

func processOrder(ctx context.Context, orderID string) error {
    ctx, span := tracer.Start(ctx, "process_order")
    defer span.End()
    span.SetAttributes(attribute.String("order_id", orderID))

    // ...
}

Make sure to pass the ctx returned by tracer.Start() to any child operations to maintain the span hierarchy.

SDK reference

Standard SDKs

Serverless SDKs

Enable tracing

Instrument libraries

Create custom spans

​Enable tracing

​Instrument libraries

​Create custom spans

Enable tracing

Instrument libraries

Create custom spans