Android observability gif

When you finally see what your app is doing in production!

Modern Android apps need more than just crash logs—they need real observability. That’s why I’m excited to introduce telemetry-android-lib, an open source library that brings distributed tracing, metrics, and structured logging to your Android projects, all with seamless integration to the Grafana LGTM (Loki, Grafana, Tempo, Mimir) stack.

✨ Why telemetry-android-lib?

  • Distributed Tracing: Track requests across your app and backend.
  • Metrics: Collect app vitals—memory, CPU, battery, thread count, uptime.
  • Structured Logging: Log with levels and context.
  • Crash Reporting: Uncaught exceptions are automatically logged.
  • Easy Integration: One-liner setup in your Application class.
  • Grafana Ready: Pre-configured for the open observability stack.
  • Custom Exporters: Plug in your own OpenTelemetry exporters.
  • Automatic Instrumentation: Trace Activity lifecycle and network requests (OkHttp) with zero boilerplate.

🏁 Quick Start

Add the library to your project (see the README for full instructions):

TelemetryManager.init(
    application = this,
    serviceName = "MyAndroidApp",
    serviceVersion = BuildConfig.VERSION_NAME,
    environment = if (BuildConfig.DEBUG) "debug" else "production",
    otlpEndpoint = "http://your-otel-collector:4317"
)

Start logging, tracing, and collecting metrics right away:

TelemetryManager.log(TelemetryManager.LogLevel.INFO, "App started")
TelemetryManager.span("user_login") {
    // Your login logic
}
TelemetryManager.incRequestCount()

🔬 Advanced Features

  • Custom Spans & Attributes: Add rich context to your traces.
  • Automatic Activity & Network Instrumentation: Just enable the flags.
  • Frame & Jank Metrics: Pinpoint slow screens and UI hiccups.
  • OkHttp Interceptor: Trace and measure all your HTTP calls.

🧪 Test with a Local LGTM Stack

Spin up a full observability stack locally using otel-stack:

git clone https://github.com/meesum-Ali/otel-stack.git
cd otel-stack
docker-compose up -d

Point your otlpEndpoint to http://localhost:4317 and view your traces, logs, and metrics in Grafana!

🤝 Open for Contributions!

Want to help make Android observability awesome?
Check out the contributing guidelines and join the project! Whether it’s code, docs, or ideas—PRs and issues are always welcome.

Ready to instrument your app?
👉 Get started on GitHub

Have questions or feedback? Open an issue or start a discussion on GitHub!