Send Go logs and traces to Bronto via OpenTelemetry

This page covers instrumenting a Go application with the OpenTelemetry SDK to send logs and traces to Bronto over OTLP/HTTP via a local OTel Collector. Both signals are co-equal: logs are bridged from log/slog — no log statement changes needed — and traces are emitted via a tracer provider.

If you don’t have a Collector and want to export directly from your application to Bronto, see Direct export to Bronto at the bottom of this page.

Prerequisites

Go 1.21 or later (required for log/slog)
A running OTel Collector configured to forward logs and traces to Bronto — see Connect Open Telemetry to Bronto
OpenTelemetry Go SDK documentation

Install dependencies

go get go.opentelemetry.io/otel/sdk/log
go get go.opentelemetry.io/otel/exporters/otlp/otlplog/otlploghttp
go get go.opentelemetry.io/contrib/bridges/otelslog
go get go.opentelemetry.io/otel/sdk/resource
go get go.opentelemetry.io/otel/semconv/v1.26.0

Package	Purpose
`sdk/log`	`LoggerProvider` and processors
`exporters/otlp/otlplog/otlploghttp`	OTLP/HTTP exporter
`contrib/bridges/otelslog`	Bridges `log/slog` into OTel
`sdk/resource`	Resource builder
`semconv/v1.26.0`	Standard attribute key constants

Configure the log bridge

The otelslog bridge replaces the default slog handler. All slog.Info(), slog.Warn(), and slog.Error() calls are forwarded to the OTel pipeline automatically.

otel_logging.go

package logging

import (
    "context"
    "log/slog"

    "go.opentelemetry.io/contrib/bridges/otelslog"
    "go.opentelemetry.io/otel/exporters/otlp/otlplog/otlploghttp"
    "go.opentelemetry.io/otel/sdk/log"
    "go.opentelemetry.io/otel/sdk/resource"
    semconv "go.opentelemetry.io/otel/semconv/v1.26.0"
)

func Configure(ctx context.Context) (shutdown func(context.Context) error, err error) {
    res, err := resource.New(ctx,
        resource.WithAttributes(
            semconv.ServiceName("my-service"),
            semconv.ServiceNamespace("my-team"),
            semconv.DeploymentEnvironment("production"),
        ),
    )
    if err != nil {
        return nil, err
    }

    exporter, err := otlploghttp.New(ctx,
        otlploghttp.WithEndpoint("localhost:4318"),
        otlploghttp.WithInsecure(),
    )
    if err != nil {
        return nil, err
    }

    provider := log.NewLoggerProvider(
        log.WithResource(res),
        log.WithProcessor(log.NewBatchProcessor(exporter)),
    )

    // Replace the default slog handler with the OTel bridge
    slog.SetDefault(slog.New(otelslog.NewHandler("my-service",
        otelslog.WithLoggerProvider(provider))))

    return provider.Shutdown, nil
}

Configure the OTLP exporter

The otlploghttp.New call in the snippet above connects to the OTel Collector on localhost:4318 without TLS. If your Collector runs on a different host or port, update WithEndpoint accordingly. To use TLS, remove WithInsecure() and ensure your Collector is configured with a valid certificate.

Set resource attributes

Resource attributes are attached to every log record exported from this process. Two attributes drive how Bronto organises incoming logs:

OTel attribute	Bronto concept	Description
`service.name`	Dataset	Groups logs from one service
`service.namespace`	Collection	Groups related services or a team’s services

These are set via resource.WithAttributes in the setup above.

Complete example

main.go

package main

import (
    "context"
    "log/slog"
    "os"
    "os/signal"

    "myapp/logging"
)

func main() {
    ctx, stop := signal.NotifyContext(context.Background(), os.Interrupt)
    defer stop()

    shutdown, err := logging.Configure(ctx)
    if err != nil {
        slog.Error("failed to configure OTel logging", "error", err)
        os.Exit(1)
    }
    defer shutdown(context.Background())

    slog.Info("Application started")
    slog.Warn("Low disk space", "disk_free_gb", 2.1)
    slog.Error("Database connection failed", "error", "timeout")
}

defer shutdown(context.Background()) flushes any buffered log records before the process exits.

Verify delivery

After running your application, check both signals in Bronto:

Logs: open the Search page and filter by the dataset name you set in service.name — your log records should appear within a few seconds.
Traces: open the Explore Traces page and filter by the same service.name — your spans should appear within a few seconds.

If no logs appear, check:

The OTel Collector is running and reachable at the configured endpoint.
The Collector’s pipeline includes a logs pipeline with an otlp receiver and the Bronto exporter — see Connect Open Telemetry to Bronto.
logging.Configure is called before the first slog statement.
The shutdown function is called before process exit to flush buffered records.

Traces

The go.opentelemetry.io/contrib/instrumentation packages provide instrumentation for net/http, gRPC, database drivers, and more with minimal setup. For example, wrap your HTTP handler with otelhttp.NewHandler for automatic span creation per request. See Go instrumentation libraries for the full list.

Install tracing dependencies

go get go.opentelemetry.io/otel
go get go.opentelemetry.io/otel/sdk/trace
go get go.opentelemetry.io/otel/exporters/otlp/otlptrace/otlptracehttp

Configure the tracer provider

otel_tracing.go

package logging

import (
    "context"

    "go.opentelemetry.io/otel"
    "go.opentelemetry.io/otel/exporters/otlp/otlptrace/otlptracehttp"
    "go.opentelemetry.io/otel/sdk/resource"
    sdktrace "go.opentelemetry.io/otel/sdk/trace"
)

func ConfigureTracing(ctx context.Context, res *resource.Resource) (shutdown func(context.Context) error, err error) {
    exporter, err := otlptracehttp.New(ctx,
        otlptracehttp.WithEndpoint("localhost:4318"),
        otlptracehttp.WithInsecure(),
    )
    if err != nil {
        return nil, err
    }

    provider := sdktrace.NewTracerProvider(
        sdktrace.WithResource(res),
        sdktrace.WithBatcher(exporter),
    )

    otel.SetTracerProvider(provider)
    return provider.Shutdown, nil
}

Pass the same res from Configure so both signals share service.name and service.namespace.

Creating spans

tracer := otel.Tracer("my-service")

ctx, span := tracer.Start(ctx, "process-payment")
defer span.End()

span.SetAttributes(attribute.Float64("payment.amount", 99.99))
slog.InfoContext(ctx, "Processing payment")  // trace_id and span_id injected automatically

Use slog.InfoContext (with the span context) to ensure the active span’s IDs are propagated to the log record.

Complete example

main.go

package main

import (
    "context"
    "log/slog"
    "os"
    "os/signal"

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

func main() {
    ctx, stop := signal.NotifyContext(context.Background(), os.Interrupt)
    defer stop()

    logShutdown, res, err := logging.Configure(ctx)
    if err != nil {
        slog.Error("failed to configure logging", "error", err)
        os.Exit(1)
    }
    defer logShutdown(context.Background())

    traceShutdown, err := logging.ConfigureTracing(ctx, res)
    if err != nil {
        slog.Error("failed to configure tracing", "error", err)
        os.Exit(1)
    }
    defer traceShutdown(context.Background())

    tracer := otel.Tracer("my-service")
    ctx, span := tracer.Start(ctx, "handle-request")
    defer span.End()

    span.SetAttributes(attribute.String("http.method", "GET"))
    slog.InfoContext(ctx, "Handling request")  // trace_id + span_id attached automatically
}

GenAI semantic conventions

If your application calls an LLM, OpenTelemetry defines GenAI semantic conventions. There is no first-party GenAI auto-instrumentation package for Go yet — set the attributes yourself around each LLM call:

This page was verified on July 17, 2026. GenAI libraries and semantic conventions are evolving rapidly, so package configuration and emitted attributes can change between releases. Keep your instrumentation current and verify the fields emitted by the version you deploy.

tracer := otel.Tracer("my-service")

ctx, span := tracer.Start(ctx, "chat gpt-4o-mini")
defer span.End()

span.SetAttributes(
    attribute.String("gen_ai.provider.name", "openai"),
    attribute.String("gen_ai.request.model", "gpt-4o-mini"),
    attribute.Int("gen_ai.usage.input_tokens", 33),
    attribute.Int("gen_ai.usage.output_tokens", 74),
    attribute.StringSlice("gen_ai.response.finish_reasons", []string{"stop"}),
)

Message content (gen_ai.input.messages / gen_ai.output.messages) is opt-in by convention in languages with auto-instrumentation, off by default. Since you’re setting attributes by hand here, apply the same discipline — gate prompt/response content behind your own config flag rather than always sending it.

See LLM Observability for the full recommended attribute set and how to search and aggregate GenAI fields in Bronto.

Direct export to Bronto

If you are not using an OTel Collector, export directly to Bronto by replacing the exporter configurations with the Bronto OTLP endpoints and your API key:

// Logs
logExporter, err := otlploghttp.New(ctx,
    otlploghttp.WithEndpoint("ingestion.eu.bronto.io"), // or ingestion.us.bronto.io
    otlploghttp.WithURLPath("/v1/logs"),
    otlploghttp.WithHeaders(map[string]string{"x-bronto-api-key": "<YOUR_API_KEY>"}),
)

// Traces
traceExporter, err := otlptracehttp.New(ctx,
    otlptracehttp.WithEndpoint("ingestion.eu.bronto.io"), // or ingestion.us.bronto.io
    otlptracehttp.WithURLPath("/v1/traces"),
    otlptracehttp.WithHeaders(map[string]string{"x-bronto-api-key": "<YOUR_API_KEY>"}),
)

Region	Logs endpoint	Traces endpoint
EU	`https://ingestion.eu.bronto.io/v1/logs`	`https://ingestion.eu.bronto.io/v1/traces`
US	`https://ingestion.us.bronto.io/v1/logs`	`https://ingestion.us.bronto.io/v1/traces`

See API Keys for how to create a key with ingestion permissions. No other changes to the rest of the setup are required.

Overview

Ingest with agents

Ingest from AWS

Ingest from Azure

Ingest from CDN and edge

Ingest from apps and platforms

Ingest from infrastructure and databases

Ingest OpenTelemetry data

Send Go logs and traces to Bronto via OpenTelemetry

Prerequisites

Install dependencies

Configure the log bridge

Configure the OTLP exporter

Set resource attributes

Complete example

Verify delivery

Traces

Install tracing dependencies

Configure the tracer provider

Creating spans

Complete example

GenAI semantic conventions

Direct export to Bronto

​Prerequisites

​Install dependencies

​Configure the log bridge

​Configure the OTLP exporter

​Set resource attributes

​Complete example

​Verify delivery

​Traces

​Install tracing dependencies

​Configure the tracer provider

​Creating spans

​Complete example

​GenAI semantic conventions

​Direct export to Bronto

Prerequisites

Install dependencies

Configure the log bridge

Configure the OTLP exporter

Set resource attributes

Complete example

Verify delivery

Traces

Install tracing dependencies

Configure the tracer provider

Creating spans

Complete example

GenAI semantic conventions

Direct export to Bronto