OllyGarden Agent Skills for OpenTelemetry

OllyGarden Agent Skills for OpenTelemetry are open source skills that give coding agents such as Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, and GitHub Copilot accurate, current OpenTelemetry knowledge: SDK setup for Go, Java, JavaScript, Python, .NET, Ruby, and the browser; Collector configuration and OTTL; semantic conventions; and upgrades. They follow the Agent Skills specification, so they work with any agent that supports it. The full catalog, and how they relate to OllyGarden's opinionated skills package, is at ollygarden.com/resources/agent-skills.

The skills are non-opinionated by design — there are many valid ways to use OpenTelemetry, and prescribing conventions is out of scope.

They are designed for token-efficient, agent-friendly retrieval: small fetch tables, lookup indexes, and scripts that point at upstream sources of truth instead of copying docs into context. The agent finds what it missed during training; answers stay current as the project evolves.

Available Skills

Language-agnostic skills:

Skill	Path	Use When
otel-collector	skills/otel-collector/	Configuring OpenTelemetry Collector components — config keys, defaults, validation, signal support, stability, and gotchas. Progressive disclosure via components/<type>/README.md plus on-demand detail files.
otel-collector-builder	skills/otel-collector-builder/	Building custom OpenTelemetry Collector distributions with OCB — authoring the builder manifest, aligning core/contrib/provider versions, local component development, CI/Docker/multi-arch builds, and build troubleshooting.
otel-declarative-config	skills/otel-declarative-config/	Configuring OpenTelemetry SDK providers via a single YAML file (otelconf, OTEL_CONFIG_FILE, file_format). Points at the upstream schema, env-var substitution rules, and configuration precedence.
otel-ottl	skills/otel-ottl/	Authoring or reviewing OTTL statements for transform, filter, routing, and tail_sampling processors; debugging OTTL syntax and semantics; transforming traces, metrics, logs, and profiles in the Collector.
otel-profiles	skills/otel-profiles/	Continuous profiling with the OpenTelemetry profiles signal: deploying the eBPF profiler (otelcol-ebpf-profiler) on Linux hosts and Kubernetes, including kind/k3d, exporting OTLP profiles to a backend, verifying data arrives, and troubleshooting by error message.
otel-sdk-versions	skills/otel-sdk-versions/	Choosing the latest compatible released OpenTelemetry SDK, package, or component (Collector, configuration schema, semantic conventions, Weaver) version and finding setup docs or examples.
otel-semantic-conventions	skills/otel-semantic-conventions/	Selecting released semantic convention groups, attributes, and span naming rules; checking compliance; looking up exact upstream entries via the bundled query script.
otel-span-events-to-logs-migration	skills/otel-span-events-to-logs-migration/	Migrating instrumentation from the deprecated Span Event API (AddEvent, RecordException) to the Logs API following the OTEP 4430 deprecation plan.
otel-telemetry-emissions	skills/otel-telemetry-emissions/	Looking up which telemetry (spans, metrics, logs, attributes) a collector component or SDK instrumentation package emits at a specific version, and how emission changed across versions — e.g. when upgrading a component or SDK.
otel-telemetrygen	skills/otel-telemetrygen/	Constructing telemetrygen commands for generating synthetic traces, metrics, and logs; load-testing collectors; validating OTTL transforms, tail sampling, and filter rules.
otel-upgrade	skills/otel-upgrade/	Assessing OpenTelemetry package and Collector upgrades across ecosystems, including version selection, dependency compatibility, Collector distributions, configuration, builds, runtime behavior, telemetry changes, and rollout risk.
otel-weaver	skills/otel-weaver/	Authoring an OpenTelemetry Weaver registry, writing Jinja2 templates, generating language bindings, and wiring weaver registry check/generate/diff into CI.

Language-specific skills:

Skill	Path	Use When
otel-go	skills/otel-go/	OpenTelemetry in Go: declarative SDK setup with otelconf, API surface, contrib instrumentation libraries (otelhttp, otelgrpc, etc.), compile-time zero-code instrumentation (otelc), performance tuning, and breaking-change audits.
otel-java	skills/otel-java/	OpenTelemetry in Java: Javaagent zero-code instrumentation, Spring Boot Starter, manual autoconfigure SDK, declarative YAML configuration, and BOM dependency management.
otel-js	skills/otel-js/	OpenTelemetry in Node.js / JavaScript / TypeScript: NodeSDK setup, declarative YAML configuration via @opentelemetry/configuration, auto-instrumentations, and ESM vs CJS import patterns.
otel-python	skills/otel-python/	OpenTelemetry in Python: declarative SDK setup via file config, API surface and logging bridge, zero-code instrumentation (opentelemetry-distro / opentelemetry-instrument) and contrib catalog, performance tuning, breaking-change audits.
otel-dotnet	skills/otel-dotnet/	OpenTelemetry in .NET: DI/builder SDK setup (OpenTelemetry.Extensions.Hosting), native BCL instrumentation (ActivitySource, Meter, ILogger), zero-code CLR-profiler agent and contrib instrumentation catalog, performance tuning, breaking-change audits.
otel-ruby	skills/otel-ruby/	OpenTelemetry in Ruby: SDK and Bundler setup, manual tracing, experimental metrics and logs, contrib instrumentation for Rails/Rack/Sinatra/Sidekiq and other gems, propagation, performance, and breaking-change audits.
otel-browser	skills/otel-browser/	OpenTelemetry in the browser (Real User Monitoring / RUM): web tracing SDK (sdk-trace-web, context-zone) and experimental browser-sdk, event- and span-based browser instrumentations (web vitals, navigation, errors, fetch/XHR), sessions, frontend→backend trace propagation, and bundle-size/cost/PII trade-offs.

Installation

skills.sh

Install all skills:

npx skills add https://github.com/ollygarden/opentelemetry-agent-skills

Or install a single skill by pointing at its folder, e.g.:

npx skills add https://github.com/ollygarden/opentelemetry-agent-skills/tree/main/skills/otel-go

Claude Code

1. Register the repository as a plugin marketplace:

   /plugin marketplace add ollygarden/opentelemetry-agent-skills
   

2. Install a skill:

   /plugin install <skill-name>@opentelemetry-agent-skills
   

   For example:

   /plugin install otel-go@opentelemetry-agent-skills
   

Cursor, Codex, GitHub Copilot, and other agents

The skills CLI installs into the coding agents it detects. Pass -a to choose one, such as cursor, codex, or github-copilot:

npx skills add ollygarden/opentelemetry-agent-skills -a cursor

See the skills CLI documentation for every supported agent.

Repository Structure

Each skill is a self-contained folder under skills/, named to match its name: field per the agentskills.io specification. Language-specific skills bundle task-focused references; language-agnostic skills sit alongside them.

skills/
  otel-go/
    SKILL.md           # name: otel-go
    references/        # declarative-setup, api, instrumentation-libraries, performance, breaking-changes, compile-time-instrumentation
  otel-java/
    SKILL.md
    references/
  otel-js/
    SKILL.md
    references/
  otel-python/
    SKILL.md
    references/
  otel-dotnet/
    SKILL.md
    references/
  otel-ruby/
    SKILL.md
    references/
  otel-browser/
    SKILL.md
    references/        # setup-sdk, instrumentation, performance
  otel-collector/
    SKILL.md
    components/        # one directory per Collector component (log_dedup, interval, …)
  otel-collector-builder/
    SKILL.md
    references/        # manifest, workflows, troubleshooting
  otel-declarative-config/
  otel-ottl/
  otel-profiles/
    SKILL.md
    references/        # receiver, kubernetes, nested-containers, backends, troubleshooting
  otel-sdk-versions/
  otel-semantic-conventions/
  otel-span-events-to-logs-migration/
  otel-telemetry-emissions/
    SKILL.md
    <repo>/<path>/     # generated telemetry inventories, one file per version
  otel-telemetrygen/
  otel-upgrade/
    SKILL.md
    references/        # dependency and Collector upgrade workflows
  otel-weaver/

bin/                     # the gates CI runs, runnable locally
  validate-skill.sh      # Agent Skills spec conformance + house rules
  check-skill-inventory.py
  skills-ref.requirement # pinned validator revision; the single source
docs/
  preferred-workflow.md  # how a change moves through this repository
tools/otel-agent-tools/  # Go CLI that generates bundled reference data
tools/otel-telemetry-emission-scan/  # Authoring-time telemetry emission scanner

Contributing

Contributions are welcome — including pull requests authored and implemented by AI coding agents. See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full guide. The essentials:

• Keep skills DRY. Prefer referencing official docs, examples, and source code that are already maintained instead of copying large amounts of additional knowledge into the skill. There will be exceptions, but the default should be to link or point to the maintained source of truth.
• Design skills to be token efficient. Avoid dumping large files or broad context into a skill when a targeted lookup, focused reference, or small generated artifact will do.
• Stay vendor neutral.
• Skills must conform to the Agent Skills specification. Check yours with ./bin/validate-skill.sh and ./bin/check-skill-inventory.py — the same gates CI runs.
• PRs that add or substantively change a skill must include harness results: the same prompt run on a frontier model without and with the skill, showing the skill helps.
• docs/preferred-workflow.md walks a change through the repository end to end, from branch to merge.
• Contributors sign the organization-wide OllyGarden CLA on their first pull request.

All participants must follow OllyGarden's Code of Conduct. See SUPPORT.md for help and issue routing, and OllyGarden's organization-wide governance policy for project roles and decision making. Report suspected vulnerabilities privately under the inherited security policy.