Galileo OTel tracing needs no collector: spans export directly

TL;DR

Configure project and log stream through the environment (GALILEOAPIKEY, GALILEOPROJECT, GALILEOLOG_STREAM) so the same code runs unchanged across environments.

Steps

1. For OpenTelemetry traces in Galileo you do not need a collector: register Galileo's span processor and spans export straight to the Galileo backend. Configure project and log stream through the environment (GALILEOAPIKEY, GALILEOPROJECT, GALILEOLOG_STREAM) so the same code runs unchanged across environments. To trace a multi-agent pipeline end to end, propagate the trace context across agent calls; child spans attach to the parent trace automatically when context propagation is set up. Missing traces usually mean the processor was never registered or the env vars were unset in the subprocess.

When to use

You are seeing this: For OpenTelemetry traces in Galileo you do not need a collector: register Galileo's span processor and spans export straight to the Galileo backend. Use this skill when you run into "Galileo OTel tracing needs no collector: spans export directly".

When not to use

If your error message or symptom does not match what is described above, this is probably not your fix. Search for your exact error text instead of forcing this one to fit.

Versions

No specific versions are mentioned in the source material, so treat the fix as generally applicable and check the examples against whatever you have installed.

Why this happens

The original report does not dig into a root cause. It documents the symptom and the fix that resolved it.

Official docs (rungalileo/docs-official, distributed tracing with OpenTelemetry): documents the setup that surprises OTel users: the Galileo span processor exports directly to Galileo with no collector in the middle, and project plus log-stream config comes from environment variables. Resolved: For OpenTelemetry traces in Galileo you do not need a collector: register Galileo's span processor and spans export straight to the Galileo backend. Configure project and log stream through the environment (GALILEOAPIKEY, GALILEOPROJECT, GALILEOLOG_STREAM) so the same code runs unchanged across environments. To trace a multi-agent pipeline end to end, propagate the trace context across agent calls; child spans attach to the parent trace automatically when context propagation is set up. Missing traces usually mean the processor was never registered or the env vars were unset in the subprocess.