Claude Code Telemetry Enable

Enable OpenTelemetry telemetry in Claude Code to send metrics, logs, and traces to your observability stack (local LGTM or Railway).

When to Use

• After deploying observability stack (observability-stack-setup)
• Need to enable Claude Code monitoring
• Want to configure telemetry for local or cloud backends
• Need to verify telemetry connectivity

What This Skill Does

Creates Claude Code environment configuration files that enable:

• Metrics: Token usage, costs, session counts, tool performance
• Logs: User prompts (full content), tool results, API requests/errors
• Traces: Session flows, tool execution spans, API call traces

Privacy Note: Configured for FULL LOGGING (no redactions) per your requirements.

Quick Start

For Local Stack

# After running observability-stack-setup
# Invoke this skill with:
enable-local

# Claude Code will now send telemetry to localhost:4317

For Railway Stack

# After deploying to Railway
# Invoke this skill with:
enable-railway --endpoint https://your-alloy.railway.app:443

# Claude Code will send telemetry to Railway

Operations

enable-local

Configure Claude Code for local LGTM stack.

Creates: ~/.config/claude-code/.env.telemetry

Configuration:

CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_TELEMETRY=1
OTEL_METRICS_EXPORTER=otlp
OTEL_LOGS_EXPORTER=otlp
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL=grpc
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=http://localhost:4317

# Fast export (for development)
OTEL_METRIC_EXPORT_INTERVAL=10000  # 10 seconds
OTEL_LOGS_EXPORT_INTERVAL=5000     # 5 seconds

# FULL LOGGING (no privacy restrictions)
OTEL_LOG_USER_PROMPTS=1
OTEL_METRICS_INCLUDE_SESSION_ID=true
OTEL_METRICS_INCLUDE_VERSION=true
OTEL_METRICS_INCLUDE_ACCOUNT_UUID=true

enable-railway

Configure Claude Code for Railway-hosted LGTM stack.

Parameters:

• --endpoint: Railway Alloy OTLP endpoint URL
• --token: (Optional) Railway authentication token

Example:

enable-railway \
  --endpoint https://your-alloy-abc123.railway.app:443 \
  --token your-railway-token

Creates: ~/.config/claude-code/.env.telemetry with Railway endpoint

enable-custom

Configure for custom OTLP endpoint (Grafana Cloud, DataDog, etc.).

Parameters:

• --endpoint: OTLP endpoint URL
• --protocol: grpc or http (default: grpc)
• --headers: Authentication headers (e.g., "Authorization=Bearer token")

Example:

enable-custom \
  --endpoint https://otlp.grafana.net:443 \
  --protocol grpc \
  --headers "Authorization=Basic base64encodedcreds"

verify

Test telemetry configuration and connectivity.

Checks:

1. Configuration file exists
2. Required environment variables set
3. OTLP endpoint reachable
4. Test telemetry successfully sent
5. Data visible in backend (Grafana/Loki/Prometheus/Tempo)

Output:

Telemetry Configuration Check:
✅ Config file: ~/.config/claude-code/.env.telemetry
✅ CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_TELEMETRY=1
✅ OTLP endpoint: localhost:4317
✅ Endpoint reachable
✅ Test span sent successfully
✅ Data visible in Grafana

Status: HEALTHY - Telemetry fully operational

disable

Turn off telemetry completely.

Actions:

1. Renames .env.telemetry to .env.telemetry.disabled
2. OR sets CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_TELEMETRY=0

Re-enable: Rename file back or use enable-local / enable-railway again

status

Show current telemetry configuration.

Output:

Telemetry Status:
  State: ENABLED
  Endpoint: http://localhost:4317
  Protocol: gRPC
  Privacy: FULL LOGGING (all data captured)
  Export Intervals: Metrics 10s, Logs 5s

  Captured Data:
    - User prompts (full content)
    - Tool executions (all tools)
    - API requests (tokens, cost, latency)
    - Session metadata (IDs, version, account)

Configuration Details

Environment Variables

Essential:

• CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_TELEMETRY: 1 to enable, 0 to disable
• OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT: OTLP endpoint URL
• OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL: grpc or http

Exporters:

• OTEL_METRICS_EXPORTER: otlp (send metrics via OTLP)
• OTEL_LOGS_EXPORTER: otlp (send logs via OTLP)

Export Intervals:

• OTEL_METRIC_EXPORT_INTERVAL: Milliseconds between metric exports (default: 60000)
• OTEL_LOGS_EXPORT_INTERVAL: Milliseconds between log exports (default: 5000)

Privacy Controls (configured for FULL logging):

• OTEL_LOG_USER_PROMPTS: 1 = log full prompt content, 0 = log length only
• OTEL_METRICS_INCLUDE_SESSION_ID: true = include session IDs in metrics
• OTEL_METRICS_INCLUDE_VERSION: true = include Claude Code version
• OTEL_METRICS_INCLUDE_ACCOUNT_UUID: true = include account identifier

Authentication (for cloud backends):

• OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS: Headers for authentication (e.g., "Authorization=Bearer token")

What Gets Captured

Metrics (counters, gauges, histograms):

• claude_code.session.count - Session frequenc

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