Node framework

Express observability, live in minutes.

Traces and metrics for Express in one bootstrap file, no middleware zoo required.

Create a project Full Express docs
Three ways in

Snippet, wizard, or manual.

Lead with the fastest path — the copy-paste snippet with your token baked in. The wizard and manual setup stay available.

  1. STEP 1
    Copy-paste the snippet

    Create an OpenTelemetry project and export TRACEPATH_URL + TRACEPATH_TOKEN.

  2. STEP 2
    Run the wizard

    npx tracepath-wizard detects Express and installs the OTel packages.

  3. STEP 3
    Manual path

    Install @opentelemetry/sdk-node and require the bootstrap before your server.

Real code

A working instrumentation.js.

Taken from our own examples and docs — this is the actual shape of a Express integration.

import { NodeSDK } from "@opentelemetry/sdk-node";
import { OTLPTraceExporter } from "@opentelemetry/exporter-trace-otlp-http";
import { OTLPMetricExporter } from "@opentelemetry/exporter-metrics-otlp-http";
import { PeriodicExportingMetricReader } from "@opentelemetry/sdk-metrics";
import { getNodeAutoInstrumentations } from "@opentelemetry/auto-instrumentations-node";

const tracepathUrl = process.env.TRACEPATH_URL || "https://ingest.tracepath.dev";
const tracepathToken = process.env.TRACEPATH_TOKEN;

const sdk = new NodeSDK({
  serviceName: "my-express-app",
  traceExporter: new OTLPTraceExporter({
    url: `${tracepathUrl}/api/otel/v1/traces`,
    headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${tracepathToken}` },
  }),
  metricReader: new PeriodicExportingMetricReader({
    exporter: new OTLPMetricExporter({
      url: `${tracepathUrl}/api/otel/v1/metrics`,
      headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${tracepathToken}` },
    }),
    exportIntervalMillis: 10_000,
  }),
  instrumentations: [getNodeAutoInstrumentations()],
});

sdk.start();

Source: examples/express-otel/instrumentation.js in the TracePath repo. TODO-verify: snippet matches the latest SDK release before publishing.

What you get

Built for Express.

HTTP request spans with route templating

Outbound fetch/http instrumentation

Metrics exported every 10s

Errors become exception events with trace context

Browse everything tagged #express →

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