OpenTelemetry

Grafana k6 can push test run metrics in the OpenTelemetry (OTEL) metrics format to an OTEL metrics collector or a metrics backend that supports the OTEL metrics format by using the experimental OpenTelemetry output --out experimental-opentelemetry.

Note that the experimental-opentelemetry became a part of k6 only with k6 v0.53.0, so prior that version you should use the xk6-output-opentelemetry extension.

For any feedback, bugs or suggestions feel free to open an issue directly in the output repository. Contributions are also welcome!

Metrics mapping

k6 converts all k6 metric types to an equivalent OTEL metric type, and all k6 tags to OTEL attributes. When possible, the units are also passed with the metrics.

k6 Metric	OpenTelemetry Metric
Counter	`Float64CounterOption`
Gauge	`Float64ObservableGauge`
Rate	Split into two `Int64Counter` counters named `metric_name.occurred` and `metric_name.total`. `metric_name.occurred` counts only the number of non-zero occurrences, and `metric_name.total` registers the total number of positive and negative occurrences. This might change in the future, refer to xk6-output-opentelemetry#12 for more details.
Trend	`Float64Histogram`

Run the k6 test

You can use the --out experimental-opentelemetry option when running your tests to use this extension:

$  K6_OTEL_GRPC_EXPORTER_INSECURE=true K6_OTEL_METRIC_PREFIX=k6_ k6 run --tag test-id=123 -o experimental-opentelemetry examples/script.js

Configuration

The following options can be configured:

Name	Value
`K6_OTEL_SERVICE_NAME`	The name of the service to use for the metrics exporting. Default value is `k6`.
`K6_OTEL_SERVICE_VERSION`	The version of the service to use for the metrics exporting. Default is version of the k6, e.g. `v0.54.0`
`K6_OTEL_METRIC_PREFIX`	Metric prefix. Default is empty.
`K6_OTEL_FLUSH_INTERVAL`	How frequently to flush metrics from k6 metrics engine. Default is `1s`.
`K6_OTEL_EXPORT_INTERVAL`	Configures the intervening time between metrics exports. Default is `10s`.
`K6_OTEL_HEADERS`	Configures headers in the W3C Correlation-Context format without additional semi-colon delimited metadata (i.e. “k1=v1,k2=v2”). Passes the headers to the exporter.
`K6_OTEL_TLS_INSECURE_SKIP_VERIFY`	Disables server certificate verification.
`K6_OTEL_TLS_CERTIFICATE`	Configures the path to the root CA certificate file for TLS credentials. If it is not provided but TLS is enabled then the host’s root CAs set is used.
`K6_OTEL_TLS_CLIENT_CERTIFICATE`	Configures the path to the client certificate file.
`K6_OTEL_TLS_CLIENT_KEY`	Configures the path to the client key file.
`K6_OTEL_EXPORTER_TYPE`	Configures the type of exporter to use. Valid options are `http` and `grpc`. Default is `grpc`.
`K6_OTEL_GRPC_EXPORTER_INSECURE`	Disables client transport security for the gRPC exporter.
`K6_OTEL_GRPC_EXPORTER_ENDPOINT`	Configures the gRPC exporter endpoint. Default is `localhost:4317`.
`K6_OTEL_HTTP_EXPORTER_INSECURE`	Disables client transport security for the HTTP exporter.
`K6_OTEL_HTTP_EXPORTER_ENDPOINT`	Configures the HTTP exporter endpoint. Must be host and port only, without scheme. Default is `localhost:4318`.
`K6_OTEL_HTTP_EXPORTER_URL_PATH`	Configures the HTTP exporter path. Default is `/v1/metrics`.

You can also use the OpenTelemetry SDK configuration environment variables to configure the OpenTelemetry output, like the gRPC exporter configuration. The K6_OTEL_* environment variables take precedence over the OpenTelemetry SDK configuration environment variables.