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This page covers instrumenting a Kotlin application with the OpenTelemetry Java SDK to send logs and traces to Bronto over OTLP/HTTP via a local OTel Collector. Logs are bridged via the Logback appender — no log statement changes needed. Traces are added by configuring a tracer provider alongside the log 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.

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Prerequisites

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Install dependencies

Use the OpenTelemetry BOM to manage all SDK versions in one place and avoid version conflicts.
// check https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/io.opentelemetry/opentelemetry-bom for latest BOM version
implementation(platform("io.opentelemetry:opentelemetry-bom:LATEST"))

dependencies {
    implementation("io.opentelemetry:opentelemetry-api")
    implementation("io.opentelemetry:opentelemetry-sdk")
    implementation("io.opentelemetry:opentelemetry-exporter-otlp")
    // check https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/io.opentelemetry.instrumentation/opentelemetry-logback-appender-1.0 for latest
    implementation("io.opentelemetry.instrumentation:opentelemetry-logback-appender-1.0:LATEST")
}

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Configure the log bridge

Add the OpenTelemetryAppender to your logback.xml. Every log record Logback handles will be forwarded to the OTel pipeline.
logback.xml
<configuration>
  <appender name="CONSOLE" class="ch.qos.logback.core.ConsoleAppender">
    <encoder>
      <pattern>%d{HH:mm:ss} %-5level %logger{36} - %msg%n</pattern>
    </encoder>
  </appender>

  <appender name="OpenTelemetry"
            class="io.opentelemetry.instrumentation.logback.appender.v1_0.OpenTelemetryAppender">
    <captureExperimentalAttributes>true</captureExperimentalAttributes>
    <captureCodeAttributes>true</captureCodeAttributes>
  </appender>

  <root level="INFO">
    <appender-ref ref="CONSOLE" />
    <appender-ref ref="OpenTelemetry" />
  </root>
</configuration>

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Configure the OTLP exporter

Create an OpenTelemetrySdk instance and call OpenTelemetryAppender.install() to wire the Logback appender to the SDK.
OtelConfig.kt
import io.opentelemetry.api.common.Attributes
import io.opentelemetry.exporter.otlp.http.logs.OtlpHttpLogRecordExporter
import io.opentelemetry.instrumentation.logback.appender.v1_0.OpenTelemetryAppender
import io.opentelemetry.sdk.OpenTelemetrySdk
import io.opentelemetry.sdk.logs.SdkLoggerProvider
import io.opentelemetry.sdk.logs.export.BatchLogRecordProcessor
import io.opentelemetry.sdk.resources.Resource
import io.opentelemetry.semconv.ResourceAttributes

fun configureOtelLogging() {
    val exporter = OtlpHttpLogRecordExporter.builder()
        .setEndpoint("http://localhost:4318/v1/logs")
        .build()

    val resource = Resource.getDefault().merge(
        Resource.create(
            Attributes.of(
                ResourceAttributes.SERVICE_NAME, "my-service",
                ResourceAttributes.SERVICE_NAMESPACE, "my-team",
                ResourceAttributes.DEPLOYMENT_ENVIRONMENT, "production"
            )
        )
    )

    val loggerProvider = SdkLoggerProvider.builder()
        .setResource(resource)
        .addLogRecordProcessor(BatchLogRecordProcessor.builder(exporter).build())
        .build()

    val openTelemetry = OpenTelemetrySdk.builder()
        .setLoggerProvider(loggerProvider)
        .buildAndRegisterGlobal()

    OpenTelemetryAppender.install(openTelemetry)
}
Call configureOtelLogging() once at application startup, before the first log statement.

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Set resource attributes

Resource attributes are attached to every log record exported from this process. Two attributes drive how Bronto organises incoming logs:
OTel attributeBronto conceptDescription
service.nameDatasetGroups logs from one service
service.namespaceCollectionGroups related services or a team’s services
These are set via Resource.create() in the SDK configuration above.

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Complete example

main.kt
import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory

fun main() {
    configureOtelLogging()

    val logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger("main")
    logger.info("Application started")
    logger.warn("Low disk space, free_gb={}", 2.1)
    logger.error("Database connection failed", RuntimeException("timeout"))
}
Existing SLF4J / Logback log statements require no changes.

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Verify log collection

After running your application, open the Search page in Bronto. Filter by the dataset name you set in service.name — your log records 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.
  • OpenTelemetryAppender.install() is called before the first log statement.
  • BatchLogRecordProcessor exports on a background thread — for short-lived programs, add a shutdown call: loggerProvider.shutdown().

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Traces

The OpenTelemetry Java Agent works for Kotlin applications too — attach it with -javaagent:opentelemetry-javaagent.jar to auto-instrument Spring Boot, Hibernate, gRPC, Kafka, and many more frameworks with no code changes.

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Configure the tracer provider

No additional packages are needed — opentelemetry-sdk and opentelemetry-exporter-otlp already include tracing support. Create a SdkTracerProvider and combine it with the SdkLoggerProvider in the same OpenTelemetrySdk builder:
OtelConfig.kt
import io.opentelemetry.exporter.otlp.http.trace.OtlpHttpSpanExporter
import io.opentelemetry.sdk.trace.SdkTracerProvider
import io.opentelemetry.sdk.trace.export.BatchSpanProcessor

val traceExporter = OtlpHttpSpanExporter.builder()
    .setEndpoint("http://localhost:4318/v1/traces")
    .build()

val tracerProvider = SdkTracerProvider.builder()
    .setResource(resource)
    .addSpanProcessor(BatchSpanProcessor.builder(traceExporter).build())
    .build()

val openTelemetry = OpenTelemetrySdk.builder()
    .setLoggerProvider(loggerProvider)
    .setTracerProvider(tracerProvider)
    .buildAndRegisterGlobal()

OpenTelemetryAppender.install(openTelemetry)
The shared resource ensures service.name and service.namespace are identical on both logs and traces.

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Creating spans

val tracer = GlobalOpenTelemetry.getTracer("my-service")

val span = tracer.spanBuilder("process-payment").startSpan()
span.makeCurrent().use {
    span.setAttribute("payment.amount", 99.99)
    logger.info("Processing payment")  // trace_id and span_id injected automatically
}
span.end()
Any Logback statement inside an active span will automatically have trace_id and span_id attached.

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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: 
val logExporter = OtlpHttpLogRecordExporter.builder()
    .setEndpoint("https://ingestion.eu.bronto.io/v1/logs") // or ingestion.us.bronto.io
    .addHeader("x-bronto-api-key", "<YOUR_API_KEY>")
    .build()

val traceExporter = OtlpHttpSpanExporter.builder()
    .setEndpoint("https://ingestion.eu.bronto.io/v1/traces") // or ingestion.us.bronto.io
    .addHeader("x-bronto-api-key", "<YOUR_API_KEY>")
    .build()
RegionLogs endpointTraces endpoint
EUhttps://ingestion.eu.bronto.io/v1/logshttps://ingestion.eu.bronto.io/v1/traces
UShttps://ingestion.us.bronto.io/v1/logshttps://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.