observability-edot-python-instrument

Original：🇺🇸 English

Translated

Instrument a Python application with the Elastic Distribution of OpenTelemetry (EDOT) Python agent for automatic tracing, metrics, and logs. Use when adding observability to a Python service that has no existing APM agent.

10installs

Sourceelastic/agent-skills

Added on2026-03-17

NPX Install

npx skill4agent add elastic/agent-skills observability-edot-python-instrument

SKILL.md Content

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EDOT Python Instrumentation

Read the setup guide before making changes:

Guidelines

Install
```
elastic-opentelemetry
```
via pip (add to
```
requirements.txt
```
or equivalent)
Run
```
edot-bootstrap --action=install
```
during image build to install auto-instrumentation packages for detected libraries

Wrap the application entrypoint with

opentelemetry-instrument

— e.g.

opentelemetry-instrument gunicorn app:app

or

opentelemetry-instrument python app.py

. Without this, no telemetry is collected

Set exactly three required environment variables:

```
OTEL_SERVICE_NAME
```
```
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT
```
— must be the managed OTLP endpoint or EDOT Collector URL. Never use an APM Server URL (no
```
apm-server
```
, no
```
:8200
```
, no
```
/intake/v2/events
```
)

OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS

—

"Authorization=ApiKey <key>"

or

"Authorization=Bearer <token>"

Do NOT set

OTEL_TRACES_EXPORTER

,

OTEL_METRICS_EXPORTER

, or

OTEL_LOGS_EXPORTER

— the defaults are already correct

Do NOT add code-level SDK setup (no
```
TracerProvider
```
, no
```
configure_azure_monitor
```
, etc.) —
```
opentelemetry-instrument
```
handles everything
Never run both classic
```
elastic-apm
```
and EDOT on the same application

Examples

See the EDOT Python setup guide for complete examples.