Claude Code Telemetry Enable

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 frequency
• claude_code.token.usage - Token consumption (input + output)
• claude_code.cost.usage - API costs in USD
• claude_code.code_edit_tool.decision - Accept/​reject patterns
• claude_code.active_time.total - Engagement duration (seconds)
• claude_code.pull_request.count - PR creation count
• claude_code.commit.count - Git commit count

Log Events (structured JSON):

1. claude_code.user_prompt - User prompt submissions (full content)
2. claude_code.tool_result - Tool execution outcomes (tool name, status, duration)
3. claude_code.api_request - Claude API calls (model, tokens, cost, latency)
4. claude_code.api_error - Failed API requests (status codes, retry attempts)
5. claude_code.tool_decision - Permission decisions (approved/​rejected)

Traces (distributed tracing):

• Session traces: Complete conversation workflows
• Tool call spans: Read, Write, Edit, Bash, Glob, Grep, Task, etc.
• Agent task spans: Parallel agent execution
• API request spans: Claude API latency breakdown

Retention

All data stored for 365 days (configured in observability stack).

File Locations

Configuration File:

• Linux/​WSL: ~/​.config/​claude-code/​.env.telemetry
• macOS: ~/​.config/​claude-code/​.env.telemetry
• Windows: %USERPROFILE%\.config\claude-code\.env.telemetry

Managed Settings (organization-enforced, optional):

• Linux: /​etc/​claude-code/​managed-settings.json
• macOS: /​Library/​Application Support/​ClaudeCode/​managed-settings.json
• Windows: C:\ProgramData\ClaudeCode\managed-settings.json

Troubleshooting

Telemetry Not Appearing in Grafana

Check 1: Is telemetry enabled?

cat ~/​.config/​claude-code/​.env.telemetry
# Should show CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_TELEMETRY=1

Check 2: Is OTLP endpoint reachable?

curl -v http://localhost:4317
# Should connect (may get empty response, that's ok)

Check 3: Is observability stack running?

docker compose -f .observability/​docker-compose.yml ps
# All 5 services should be "running"

Check 4: Use Claude Code and check immediately

# After using Claude Code, query Loki:
curl -s 'http://localhost:3100/​loki/​api/​v1/​query?query={job="claude_code"}' | jq .
# Should show recent logs

Port Already in Use (4317)

If another service is using port 4317:

Option 1: Stop the conflicting service

sudo lsof -i :4317
sudo kill <PID>

Option 2: Change Alloy port in observability stack Edit .observability/​docker-compose.yml:

ports:
  - "4318:4317"  # Expose on 4318 instead

Then update telemetry config:

OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=http://localhost:4318

Permission Denied

If configuration file creation fails:

# Create directory manually
mkdir -p ~/​.config/​claude-code
chmod 755 ~/​.config/​claude-code

# Try again

Next Steps

After enabling telemetry:

1. Use Claude Code: Run tools (Read, Write, Bash, etc.)
2. Generate telemetry: Each operation sends data
3. View in Grafana: Open http://localhost:3000
4. Check dashboards: Navigate to "Claude Code Overview"
5. Verify metrics: See token usage, costs, tool calls

References

• references/​env-telemetry-local.txt - Local configuration template
• references/​env-telemetry-railway.txt - Railway configuration template
• references/​env-telemetry-custom.txt - Custom endpoint template
• references/​telemetry-variables.md - All environment variables explained
• references/​privacy-settings.md - Privacy configuration options

Scripts

• scripts/​enable-local.sh - Enable for local stack
• scripts/​enable-railway.sh - Enable for Railway
• scripts/​verify-telemetry.sh - Test configuration and connectivity
• scripts/​disable-telemetry.sh - Turn off telemetry