Tracing

Gate supports distributed tracing via the OpenTelemetry OTLP exporter. Traces can be exported to any OTLP-compatible backend (Jaeger, Grafana Tempo, Honeycomb, etc.).

Service name

The service_name field sets the service name attached to all traces and log records. It is a top-level field under gate::

Environment variables

GATE_SERVICE_NAME=my-gate

HCL

gate = {
  service_name = "my-gate"
}

JSON

{
  "gate": {
    "service_name": "my-gate"
  }
}

TOML

[gate]
  service_name = "my-gate"

YAML

gate:
  service_name: my-gate

OpenTelemetry exporter

Use tracing.exporter.opentelemetry to export traces to an OTLP endpoint:

Environment variables

GATE_SERVICE_NAME=my-gate
GATE_TRACING_EXPORTER_OPENTELEMETRY_ENABLED=true
GATE_TRACING_EXPORTER_OPENTELEMETRY_ENDPOINT=http://otel-collector:4317
GATE_TRACING_EXPORTER_OPENTELEMETRY_PROTOCOL=grpc
GATE_TRACING_EXPORTER_OPENTELEMETRY_HEADERS_<HEADER_NAME>=<Header value>
GATE_TRACING_SAMPLE_PROBABILITY=1.0

HCL

gate = {
  service_name = "my-gate"
  tracing = {
    exporter = {
      opentelemetry = {
        enabled  = true
        endpoint = "http://otel-collector:4317"
        protocol = "grpc"
        headers  = {
          "<Header name>" = "<Header value>"
        }
      }
    }
    sample = {
      probability = "1.0"
    }
  }
}

JSON

{
  "gate": {
    "service_name": "my-gate",
    "tracing": {
      "exporter": {
        "opentelemetry": {
          "enabled": true,
          "endpoint": "http://otel-collector:4317",
          "protocol": "grpc",
          "headers": {
            "<Header name>": "<Header value>"
          }
        }
      },
      "sample": {
        "probability": "1.0"
      }
    }
  }
}

TOML

[gate]
  service_name = "my-gate"

  [gate.tracing]
    [gate.tracing.exporter]
      [gate.tracing.exporter.opentelemetry]
        enabled  = true
        endpoint = "http://otel-collector:4317"
        protocol = "grpc"

        [gate.tracing.exporter.opentelemetry.headers]
          "<Header name>" = "<Header value>"
    [gate.tracing.sample]
      probability = "1.0"

YAML

gate:
  service_name: my-gate
  tracing:
    exporter:
      opentelemetry:
        enabled: true
        endpoint: http://otel-collector:4317
        protocol: grpc
        headers:
          <Header name>: <Header value>
    sample:
      probability: "1.0"

Parameters

Parameter	Description	Default
enabled	Enable the exporter	false
endpoint	OTLP collector endpoint URL	—
protocol	Transport protocol: grpc (port 4317) or http (port 4318)	grpc
headers	Additional headers to send with each export request (key/value map)	—

Sampling

The tracing.sample.probability field controls the fraction of requests that are traced (0.0–1.0). The default is 1.0 (100%).

Sending traces to Jaeger

danger

The tracing.exporter.jaeger configuration (Jaeger Thrift protocol) is deprecated. Use tracing.exporter.opentelemetry instead — Jaeger 1.35+ accepts OTLP directly.

Point Gate at Jaeger's OTLP gRPC port (4317):

gate:
  service_name: my-gate
  tracing:
    exporter:
      opentelemetry:
        enabled: true
        endpoint: http://jaeger:4317
        protocol: grpc