Example: Send OpenTelemetry Logs with the OpenTelemetry .NET SDK

This example shows how to configure the OpenTelemetry .NET SDK’s logger provider to send logs from a .NET application to Honeycomb or to an OpenTelemetry Collector.

Acquire Dependencies

Install the OpenTelemetry SDK and OTLP exporter packages:

dotnet add package OpenTelemetry
dotnet add package OpenTelemetry.Exporter.OpenTelemetryProtocol

Configure the Logger Provider

During application setup, create and configure the logger provider:

using Microsoft.Extensions.Logging;
using OpenTelemetry;
using OpenTelemetry.Logs;

// Configure a logger factory with OpenTelemetry and the OTLP log exporter
using var loggerFactory = LoggerFactory.Create(builder =>
{
    builder.AddOpenTelemetry(options =>
    {
        options.AddOtlpExporter();
    });
});

// Create an ILogger instance from the logger factory
var logger = loggerFactory.CreateLogger<Program>();

// Use the logger in your application
logger.LogInformation("Something interesting happened");

Run Your Application

Set environment variables to configure the exporter and define your service name, then run your application.To send logs directly to Honeycomb:

OTEL_SERVICE_NAME="my-service" \
  OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT="https://api.honeycomb.io" \
  OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS="x-honeycomb-team=<your-api-key>" \
  dotnet run

To send logs to an OpenTelemetry Collector instead:

OTEL_SERVICE_NAME="my-service" \
  OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT="my-collector:4317" \
  OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_INSECURE=true \
  dotnet run