Supported Telemetry Types
| Telemetry Type | Supported |
|---|
| Traces | ✓ |
| Metrics | |
| Logs | ✓ |
Prerequisites
- A Honeycomb account with a Management API key and secret (must have
enhance:write scope)
- An AWS S3 bucket with appropriate write permissions
- AWS credentials configured on the collector host
- Network connectivity from the collector to both S3 and the Honeycomb API endpoint
Configuration
Basic Configuration
The minimum configuration requires Honeycomb API credentials, an S3 bucket, and an AWS region.
| Parameter | Type | Default | Description | Required |
|---|
| Telemetry Types | Selector | Logs, Traces | Select which types of telemetry to export. | Yes |
| API Key | String | | Honeycomb Management API key with enhance:write scope. | Yes |
| API Secret | String | | Honeycomb Management API secret. | Yes |
| API Endpoint | String | https://api.honeycomb.io | Honeycomb API endpoint URL. | Yes |
| Region | Enum | us-east-1 | AWS region where the S3 bucket is located. | Yes |
| Bucket | String | | Name of the S3 bucket to export telemetry into. | Yes |
| Folder Prefix | String | | Root directory of the bucket to export telemetry into. | No |
| Partition Format | String | year=%Y/month=%m/day=%d/hour=%H/minute=%M | Time-based partition format using ctime format codes. Must contain year, month, day, hour, and minute placeholders. | Yes |
Advanced Configuration
Data Format and Compression
| Parameter | Type | Default | Description | Required |
|---|
| Data Format | Enum | otlp_protobuf | Format of telemetry data written to S3. Options: otlp_protobuf (smaller files, more efficient) or otlp_json (human-readable). | No |
| Compression | Enum | gzip | Compression applied to data stored in S3. Options: gzip or none. | No |
| Parameter | Type | Default | Description | Required |
|---|
| Endpoint | String | | Overrides the S3 endpoint URL. Use this for S3-compatible services like MinIO. | No |
| Force Path Style | Boolean | false | Force path-style S3 addressing instead of virtual-host style. Required for some S3-compatible services. | No |
| Disable SSL | Boolean | false | Disable SSL verification for S3 connections. | No |
| Parameter | Type | Default | Description | Required |
|---|
| Custom Indexed Fields | Strings | | Additional fields to index beyond the automatic ones (trace.trace_id, service.name, session.id). | No |
To minimize Collector processing compute and time, Honeycomb recommends indexing no more than 5 custom fields.
| Parameter | Type | Default | Description | Required |
|---|
| Drop Raw Copy | Boolean | true | Drop the raw copy of the log record stored in log.record.original. | No |
| Timeout | Integer | 30 | Maximum time in seconds to wait for a batch to be sent. | No |
| Retry Mode | Enum | standard | S3 client retry strategy. Options: standard or adaptive. | No |
| Maximum Retries | Integer | 3 | Maximum number of retry attempts for S3 uploads. Set to 0 for unlimited retries. | No |
Configuration Tips
S3 Bucket and Credentials
- AWS credentials must be available to the collector via IAM role, environment variables, or shared credentials file. The destination does not accept inline AWS credentials.
- Make sure the S3 bucket policy grants
s3:PutObject permission to the collector’s identity.
- Use the Folder Prefix to isolate telemetry data within a shared bucket.
Custom Indexed Fields
- Fields like
user.id or environment can be added to Custom Indexed Fields for faster rehydration queries in Honeycomb.
- Each additional indexed field increases S3 storage usage due to extra index files written alongside data files.
Honeycomb API Endpoint
- Use
https://api.honeycomb.io for US-based Honeycomb accounts.
- Use
https://api.eu1.honeycomb.io for EU-based Honeycomb accounts.
Troubleshooting
S3 Upload Failures
Errors referencing AccessDenied, NoSuchBucket, or InvalidAccessKeyId in collector logs.
- Verify the S3 bucket exists in the configured region and the collector host has valid AWS credentials with
s3:PutObject permission.
- If using a custom Endpoint for S3-compatible storage, make sure Force Path Style is enabled.
Honeycomb API Authentication Errors
Errors referencing 401 Unauthorized or 403 Forbidden from the Honeycomb API endpoint.
- Confirm the API Key and API Secret are for a Management API key with the
enhance:write scope. Standard ingest keys will not work.
- Verify the API Endpoint matches your Honeycomb account region (US vs EU).
Missing or Incomplete Index Files
Data appears in S3 but index files are missing or incomplete. Rehydration queries in Honeycomb return fewer results than expected.
- Check that the partition format contains all required placeholders (
%Y, %m, %d, %H, %M). Missing placeholders will cause validation failures.
- Verify that custom indexed field names match the exact attribute keys present in your telemetry data.
See also
