---
title: "OpenObserve"
description: "Otel traces from the api."
url: https://plate.findmalek.engineer/docs/openobserve
markdown: https://plate.findmalek.engineer/docs/openobserve.md
group: "Modules"
---

# OpenObserve

The `openobserve` module sends OpenTelemetry traces from `apps/api` to your [OpenObserve](https://openobserve.ai) instance. It is off by default.

```bash
findplate create my-app --modules openobserve
```

## What it adds

Files and folders:

- `apps/api/src/openobserve.ts`

Packages:

- `@opentelemetry/api`
- `@opentelemetry/sdk-node`
- `@opentelemetry/exporter-trace-otlp-http`

## Env keys

```bash
OPENOBSERVE_URL=
OPENOBSERVE_ORG=default
OPENOBSERVE_USER=
OPENOBSERVE_PASSWORD=
```

`apps/api/src/openobserve.ts` starts the node sdk with an OTLP http exporter. Without `OPENOBSERVE_URL` it does nothing. A compose file is in [self-hosted tools](https://plate.findmalek.engineer/docs/self-hosted.md#openobserve).

## Remove

Run `findplate remove openobserve` in the project, see [add and doctor](https://plate.findmalek.engineer/docs/add-doctor.md#findplate-remove). It deletes the files the module owns, strips its code from shared files and drops its packages, only where you haven't edited them.

If you'd rather do it by hand: for a new project leave `openobserve` out of `--modules`. In a project that already exists, delete the paths above, drop its packages from the `package.json` files, remove its env block and fix what `pnpm check-types` reports.

## Swap

The exporter is plain OTLP over http, so any OTLP backend works. Change the exporter url and the `Authorization` header in `apps/api/src/openobserve.ts` to use Grafana Tempo, Honeycomb or similar.