@zotdotbot/openclaw-otel

OpenTelemetry plugin for OpenClaw. One connected trace per agent turn, per-turn token/cost rollups, standard GenAI semconv — exported as OTLP to any backend (SigNoz, Datadog, Grafana, …). Ships as one bundled file with zero runtime dependencies.

openclaw.request [28.1s]                      ← one agent turn (any channel), one trace
├─ openclaw.agent.turn [27.3s]                ← gen_ai.usage.* rollup, agent.success
│  ├─ openclaw.context.assembled              ← prompt/system/message sizing, budget
│  ├─ chat claude-opus-4-6 [4.3s]             ← GenAI semconv CLIENT spans (+ ttfb, bytes)
│  ├─ openclaw.skill.used                     ← per-skill activation (name, source)
│  ├─ execute_tool exec [403ms]               ← per-call tool spans (+ exec exit_code)
│  ├─ openclaw.harness.run                    ← agentic-loop item counts
│  └─ chat claude-opus-4-6 [18.8s]
├─ openclaw.message.processed                 ← inbound outcome (top error source)
└─ openclaw.message.sent                      ← outbound reply (joins the trace)

Why

OpenClaw's built-in exporter scatters each turn across disconnected root spans — no session correlation, no per-turn token/cost rollup, no gen_ai.* semconv, so OTLP backends can't reconstruct what your agent actually did. This plugin is a drop-in replacement: strictly richer, correlated data, with none of the @opentelemetry/api global-singleton wrangling that breaks the DIY approach. Full story: docs/why.md.

Install

openclaw plugins install @zotdotbot/openclaw-otel

Flag-free on OpenClaw 2026.6.5+; older hosts may need an install flag or plain npm — see docs/compatibility.md. Then in openclaw.json:

{
  "plugins": {
    "entries": {
      "openclaw-otel": {
        "enabled": true,
        "hooks": { "allowConversationAccess": true },
        "config": {
          "endpoint": "http://localhost:4318",
          "serviceName": "my-agent"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Two things people miss: hooks.allowConversationAccess: true is required (per-plugin, not top-level) or conversation spans silently never appear, and something must be listening at endpoint or exports are silently dropped — see docs/configuration.md for backends, auth headers, content capture, and every config key.

Docs

| | | | --- | --- | | docs/why.md | The gaps in the built-in exporter, and how this plugin works | | docs/configuration.md | Every config key, backends/auth, content capture | | docs/compatibility.md | OpenClaw version support matrix | | CONTRACT.md | The frozen telemetry wire contract (spans, attributes, schema versioning) | | CONTRIBUTING.md | Dev setup, tests, and the contract-change rules | | SECURITY.md | Reporting vulnerabilities; content-capture trust boundary |

License

Apache-2.0 © 2026 Zot. See LICENSE and THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md.