Distributed Tracing (OpenTelemetry)

Testkube exports distributed traces via OpenTelemetry over HTTP using the otlptracehttp exporter for both the Control Plane and the Testkube Agent. This lets you visualize and troubleshoot requests end-to-end using backends such as Grafana Tempo, Jaeger.

Environment variables

Configure tracing using these environment variables:

• TRACING_ENABLED: Enable/disable tracing export
  • Type: boolean
  • Default: false
• OTLP_ENDPOINT: OTLP HTTP collector endpoint URL
  • Type: string (URL)
  • Default: http://localhost:4318
  • Example: http://otel-collector.observability:4318
• OTLP_SERVICE_NAME: Logical service name used in traces
  • Type: string
  • Default: testkube
  • Tip: Set distinct names per component/agent to separate services in your tracing UI
• TRACING_SAMPLE_RATE: Probability sampler between 0.0 and 1.0
  • Type: float
  • Default: 1.0 (sample all)
  • Example: 0.1 to sample ~10% of requests

Notes:

• Transport: OTLP over HTTP (protobuf) using OpenTelemetry otlptracehttp.
• Use an HTTP endpoint (commonly port 4318) for your collector, or your chosen HTTP port.

Control Plane (On-Prem)

Add the variables to the Control Plane API via Helm values:

# values.yaml
testkube-cloud-api:
  additionalEnv:
    TRACING_ENABLED: "true"
    OTLP_ENDPOINT: "http://otel-collector.observability:4318"
    OTLP_SERVICE_NAME: "testkube-control-plane"
    TRACING_SAMPLE_RATE: "0.2"

Testkube Agent (Kubernetes)

Set the same variables on the Agent so workflow execution paths are traced as well:

# values.yaml
# When deploying the combined Testkube chart, use the agent subchart block

testkube-agent:
  testkube-api:
    additionalEnv:
      TRACING_ENABLED: "true"
      OTLP_ENDPOINT: "http://otel-collector.observability:4318"
      OTLP_SERVICE_NAME: "testkube-agent"
      TRACING_SAMPLE_RATE: "0.2"