Broadcast to Grafana Cloud - Send Traces to Grafana Tempo

Grafana Cloud is a fully-managed observability platform that includes Grafana Tempo for distributed tracing. OpenRouter sends traces via the standard OTLP HTTP/JSON endpoint.

Step 1: Get your Grafana Cloud credentials

You’ll need three values from your Grafana Cloud portal:

Base URL: Your Grafana Cloud OTLP endpoint (e.g., https://otlp-gateway-prod-us-west-0.grafana.net)
Instance ID: Your numeric Grafana Cloud instance ID (e.g., 123456)
API Key: A Grafana Cloud API token with write permissions (starts with glc_...)

Finding your OTLP endpoint

Log in to your Grafana Cloud portal
Navigate to Connections > Add new connection
Search for OpenTelemetry (OTLP) and select it
On the configuration page, you’ll find your OTLP endpoint URL

The base URL should be the OTLP gateway endpoint, not your main Grafana dashboard URL. The format is https://otlp-gateway-prod-{region}.grafana.net.

Finding your Instance ID

Go to your Grafana Cloud account at https://grafana.com/orgs/{your-org}/stacks
Select your stack
Your Instance ID is the numeric value shown in the URL or on the stack details page

Creating an API token

In Grafana Cloud, go to My Account > Access Policies
Create a new access policy with traces:write scope
Generate a token from this policy
Copy the token (starts with glc_...)

Step 2: Enable Broadcast in OpenRouter

Go to Settings > Observability and toggle Enable Broadcast.

Step 3: Configure Grafana Cloud

Click the edit icon next to Grafana Cloud and enter:

Base URL: Your Grafana Cloud OTLP endpoint (e.g., https://otlp-gateway-prod-us-west-0.grafana.net)
Instance ID: Your numeric Grafana Cloud instance ID
API Key: Your Grafana Cloud API token with write permissions

Step 4: Test and save

Click Test Connection to verify the setup. The configuration only saves if the test passes.

Step 5: Send a test trace

Make an API request through OpenRouter and view the trace in Grafana Cloud.

Viewing your traces

Once configured, you can view traces in Grafana Cloud in two ways:

Option 1: Explore with TraceQL

Go to your Grafana Cloud instance (e.g., https://your-stack.grafana.net)
Click Explore in the left sidebar
Select your Tempo data source (e.g., grafanacloud-*-traces)
Switch to the TraceQL tab
Run this query to see all OpenRouter traces:

{ resource.service.name = "openrouter" }

You can also filter by specific attributes:

{ resource.service.name = "openrouter" && span.gen_ai.request.model = "openai/gpt-4-turbo" }

Option 2: Drilldown > Traces

Go to your Grafana Cloud instance
Navigate to Drilldown > Traces in the left sidebar
Use the filters to find traces by service name, duration, or other attributes
Click on any trace to see the full span breakdown

Trace attributes

OpenRouter traces include the following key attributes:

Resource attributes

service.name: Always openrouter
service.version: 1.0.0
openrouter.trace.id: The OpenRouter trace ID

Span attributes

gen_ai.operation.name: The operation type (e.g., chat)
gen_ai.system: The AI provider (e.g., openai)
gen_ai.request.model: The requested model
gen_ai.response.model: The actual model used
gen_ai.usage.input_tokens: Number of input tokens
gen_ai.usage.output_tokens: Number of output tokens
gen_ai.usage.total_tokens: Total tokens used
gen_ai.response.finish_reason: Why the generation ended (e.g., stop)

Custom metadata

Any metadata you attach to your OpenRouter requests will appear under the trace.metadata.* namespace. See Custom Metadata below for details.

Custom Metadata

Grafana Cloud receives traces via the OTLP protocol. Custom metadata from the trace field is sent as span attributes and can be queried using TraceQL.

Supported Metadata Keys

Key	Grafana Mapping	Description
`trace_id`	Trace ID	Group multiple requests into a single trace
`trace_name`	Span Name	Custom name for the root span
`span_name`	Span Name	Name for intermediate spans in the hierarchy
`generation_name`	Span Name	Name for the LLM generation span
`parent_span_id`	Parent Span ID	Link to an existing span in your trace hierarchy

Example

{
  "model": "openai/gpt-4o",
  "messages": [{ "role": "user", "content": "Analyze this metric..." }],
  "user": "user_12345",
  "session_id": "session_abc",
  "trace": {
    "trace_id": "monitoring_pipeline_001",
    "trace_name": "Metric Analysis Pipeline",
    "generation_name": "Anomaly Detection",
    "environment": "production",
    "alert_id": "alert_789"
  }
}

Querying Custom Metadata with TraceQL

Custom metadata keys are available as span attributes under trace.metadata.*:

{ resource.service.name = "openrouter" && span.trace.metadata.environment = "production" }

{ resource.service.name = "openrouter" && span.trace.metadata.alert_id = "alert_789" }

Additional Context

The user field maps to user.id in span attributes
The session_id field maps to session.id in span attributes
Custom metadata keys from trace appear under the trace.metadata.* namespace in span attributes
You can create Grafana dashboards and alerts based on custom metadata attributes

Example TraceQL queries

Find slow requests (> 5 seconds)

{ resource.service.name = "openrouter" && duration > 5s }

Find requests by user

{ resource.service.name = "openrouter" && span.user.id = "user_abc123" }

Find errors

{ resource.service.name = "openrouter" && status = error }

Find requests by model

{ resource.service.name = "openrouter" && span.gen_ai.request.model =~ ".*gpt-4.*" }

Troubleshooting

Traces not appearing

Check the time range: Grafana’s time picker might not include your trace timestamp. Try expanding to “Last 1 hour” or “Last 24 hours”.
Verify the endpoint: Make sure you’re using the OTLP gateway URL (https://otlp-gateway-prod-{region}.grafana.net), not your main Grafana URL.
Check authentication: Ensure your Instance ID is numeric and your API key has write permissions.
Wait a moment: There can be a 1-2 minute delay before traces appear in Grafana.

Wrong data source

If you don’t see any traces, make sure you’ve selected the correct Tempo data source in the Explore view. It’s typically named grafanacloud-{stack}-traces.

Additional resources

Privacy Mode

When Privacy Mode is enabled for this destination, prompt and completion content is excluded from traces. All other trace data — token usage, costs, timing, model information, and custom metadata — is still sent normally. See Privacy Mode for details.

​Step 1: Get your Grafana Cloud credentials

​Finding your OTLP endpoint

​Finding your Instance ID

​Creating an API token

​Step 2: Enable Broadcast in OpenRouter

​Step 3: Configure Grafana Cloud

​Step 4: Test and save

​Step 5: Send a test trace

​Viewing your traces

​Option 1: Explore with TraceQL

​Option 2: Drilldown > Traces

​Trace attributes

​Resource attributes

​Span attributes

​Custom metadata

​Custom Metadata

​Supported Metadata Keys

​Example

​Querying Custom Metadata with TraceQL

​Additional Context

​Example TraceQL queries

​Find slow requests (> 5 seconds)

​Find requests by user

​Find errors

​Find requests by model

​Troubleshooting

​Traces not appearing

​Wrong data source

​Additional resources

​Privacy Mode

Step 1: Get your Grafana Cloud credentials

Finding your OTLP endpoint

Finding your Instance ID

Creating an API token

Step 2: Enable Broadcast in OpenRouter

Step 3: Configure Grafana Cloud

Step 4: Test and save

Step 5: Send a test trace

Viewing your traces

Option 1: Explore with TraceQL

Option 2: Drilldown > Traces

Trace attributes

Resource attributes

Span attributes

Custom metadata

Custom Metadata

Supported Metadata Keys

Example

Querying Custom Metadata with TraceQL

Additional Context

Example TraceQL queries

Find slow requests (> 5 seconds)

Find requests by user

Find errors

Find requests by model

Troubleshooting

Traces not appearing

Wrong data source

Additional resources

Privacy Mode