Send Ruby logs and traces to Bronto via OpenTelemetry

This page covers instrumenting a Ruby application with the OpenTelemetry SDK to send logs and traces to Bronto over OTLP/HTTP via a local OTel Collector.

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

Ruby 3.0 or later
Bundler
A running OTel Collector configured to forward logs and traces to Bronto — see Connect Open Telemetry to Bronto
OpenTelemetry Ruby SDK documentation

Install dependencies

Gemfile

gem 'opentelemetry-api'
gem 'opentelemetry-sdk'
gem 'opentelemetry-logs-api'
gem 'opentelemetry-logs-sdk'
gem 'opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-logs'

bundle install

Gem	Purpose
`opentelemetry-api`	Core OTel API
`opentelemetry-sdk`	SDK — resource configuration
`opentelemetry-logs-api`	Logs API
`opentelemetry-logs-sdk`	`LoggerProvider`, processors
`opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-logs`	OTLP/HTTP log exporter

Configure the log bridge

Set up a LoggerProvider with an OTLP exporter and register it as the global logs provider.

configure_logging.rb

require 'opentelemetry/sdk'
require 'opentelemetry/logs/sdk'
require 'opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-logs'

def configure_otel_logging
  resource = OpenTelemetry::SDK::Resources::Resource.create(
    'service.name'           => 'my-service',
    'service.namespace'      => 'my-team',
    'deployment.environment' => 'production'
  )

  exporter = OpenTelemetry::Exporter::OTLP::Logs::LogsExporter.new(
    endpoint: 'http://localhost:4318/v1/logs'
  )

  processor = OpenTelemetry::SDK::Logs::Export::BatchLogRecordProcessor.new(exporter)

  logger_provider = OpenTelemetry::SDK::Logs::LoggerProvider.new(resource: resource)
  logger_provider.add_log_record_processor(processor)

  OpenTelemetry::Logs.logger_provider = logger_provider
end

Call configure_otel_logging once at application startup, before the first log statement.

Configure the OTLP exporter

The OtlpLogs::LogsExporter in the snippet above connects to the OTel Collector on localhost:4318. If your Collector runs on a different host or port, update the endpoint accordingly.

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.create in the setup above.

Complete example

app.rb

require_relative 'configure_logging'

configure_otel_logging

# Emit log records through the OTel logs API directly
logger = OpenTelemetry::Logs.logger_provider.logger(name: 'my-service')

logger.on_emit(
  timestamp: Time.now,
  severity_number: OpenTelemetry::Logs::SeverityNumber::INFO,
  severity_text: 'INFO',
  body: 'Application started'
)

logger.on_emit(
  timestamp: Time.now,
  severity_number: OpenTelemetry::Logs::SeverityNumber::WARN,
  severity_text: 'WARN',
  body: 'Low disk space',
  attributes: { 'disk_free_gb' => 2.1 }
)

A direct bridge to Ruby’s standard Logger class is not yet available in the official SDK. The example above emits log records via the OTel Logs API directly. Community bridges for popular frameworks (Rails, Sidekiq) are in development.

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.
configure_otel_logging is called before the first log emission.

Traces

Add opentelemetry-instrumentation-all to your Gemfile and call c.use_all inside OpenTelemetry::SDK.configure to auto-instrument Rails, Rack, Active Record, Faraday, Redis, and more with no code changes. See Ruby instrumentation libraries for the full list.

Install tracing dependencies

Add the tracing gems to your Gemfile:

Gemfile

gem 'opentelemetry-sdk'
gem 'opentelemetry-exporter-otlp'

bundle install

Configure the tracer provider

The opentelemetry-sdk gem covers both logs and traces. Configure tracing via OpenTelemetry::SDK.configure:

configure_tracing.rb

require 'opentelemetry/sdk'
require 'opentelemetry-exporter-otlp'

OpenTelemetry::SDK.configure do |c|
  c.resource = OpenTelemetry::SDK::Resources::Resource.create(
    'service.name'           => 'my-service',
    'service.namespace'      => 'my-team',
    'deployment.environment' => 'production'
  )
  c.add_span_processor(
    OpenTelemetry::SDK::Trace::Export::BatchSpanProcessor.new(
      OpenTelemetry::Exporter::OTLP::Exporter.new(
        endpoint: 'http://localhost:4318/v1/traces'
      )
    )
  )
end

Creating spans

tracer = OpenTelemetry.tracer_provider.tracer('my-service')

tracer.in_span('process-payment') do |span|
  span.set_attribute('payment.amount', 99.99)
  span.set_attribute('payment.currency', 'USD')
  # your code here
end

GenAI semantic conventions

If your application calls an LLM, OpenTelemetry defines GenAI semantic conventions. Ruby does not yet have first-party instrumentation that emits GenAI-semconv spans, so 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 = OpenTelemetry.tracer_provider.tracer('my-service')

tracer.in_span('chat gpt-4o-mini') do |span|
  span.set_attribute('gen_ai.provider.name', 'openai')
  span.set_attribute('gen_ai.request.model', 'gpt-4o-mini')
  span.set_attribute('gen_ai.usage.input_tokens', 33)
  span.set_attribute('gen_ai.usage.output_tokens', 74)
  span.set_attribute('gen_ai.response.finish_reasons', ['stop'])
end

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
log_exporter = OpenTelemetry::Exporter::OTLP::Logs::LogsExporter.new(
  endpoint: 'https://ingestion.eu.bronto.io/v1/logs', # or ingestion.us.bronto.io
  headers: { 'x-bronto-api-key' => '<YOUR_API_KEY>' }
)

# Traces (inside OpenTelemetry::SDK.configure block)
c.add_span_processor(
  OpenTelemetry::SDK::Trace::Export::BatchSpanProcessor.new(
    OpenTelemetry::Exporter::OTLP::Exporter.new(
      endpoint: 'https://ingestion.eu.bronto.io/v1/traces', # or ingestion.us.bronto.io
      headers: { '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

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Ingest OpenTelemetry data

Send Ruby 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

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

​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

GenAI semantic conventions

Direct export to Bronto