Configuring OpenTelemetry in .NET

When to Use

• Adding distributed tracing to an ASP.NET Core application
• Setting up OpenTelemetry exporters (OTLP is the primary protocol; Jaeger accepts OTLP natively; Prometheus OTLP ingestion requires explicit opt-in)
• Creating custom metrics or trace spans for business operations
• Troubleshooting distributed trace context propagation across services

When Not to Use

• The user wants application-level logging only (use ILogger, Serilog)
• The user is using Application Insights SDK directly (different API)
• The user needs APM with a commercial vendor's proprietary SDK

Inputs