OpenTelemetry export

Nora can export its agent telemetry under the OpenTelemetry GenAI semantic conventions (gen_ai.*), so per-agent token usage, estimated cost, and runtime resource metrics flow into the Datadog / Grafana / Langfuse / Honeycomb stack you already operate — no Nora-specific agent or scraper required. It is disabled by default and fail-open: a collector outage or misconfiguration never affects chat or any other request path.

What gets exported

Spans (OTLP only): one chat span per recorded LLM exchange, with gen_ai.operation.name=chat, gen_ai.request.model, gen_ai.system (provider), gen_ai.usage.input_tokens / output_tokens, gen_ai.conversation.id (session), and nora.agent.id / nora.runtime.family / nora.sandbox.profile / nora.source. The span is bracketed around the runtime call, so its duration reflects real latency. Metrics (OTLP and/or Prometheus):

Instrument	Type	Notes
`gen_ai.client.token.usage`	histogram	Tokens per exchange, split by `gen_ai.token.type` (`input` / `output`)
`nora.agent.cost.usd`	counter	Estimated spend, attributed by agent + model, using the same model-aware pricing as `/app/cost`
`nora.agent.cpu.percent`	gauge	Latest sampled container CPU per running agent
`nora.agent.memory.percent`	gauge	Latest sampled container memory percent per running agent
`nora.agent.memory.usage`	gauge	Latest sampled container memory (MB) per running agent

This guide covers Nora’s own backend-level telemetry — the exchange-granularity spans and metrics above, exported from the control plane to your observability stack. Per-LLM-call and per-tool-call sub-spans are a separate, OpenClaw-specific capability: agents push real OpenTelemetry traces into Nora’s own native OTLP receiver, where they’re stored, searched, and shown in the Traces lens on /app/logs — see the logging guide. This isn’t available on Nora-managed agents yet: it needs a newer OpenClaw than Nora currently deploys. It’s OpenClaw-only (Hermes has no equivalent OTel export) and doesn’t currently forward into the external stack this guide configures — the two systems are independent today. A2A Agent Cards remain on the roadmap.

Enable it

Set the master switch and at least one exporter, then restart the backend:

NORA_OTEL_ENABLED=true

# OTLP/HTTP push — metrics AND spans (an OpenTelemetry Collector, Grafana Alloy,
# or a vendor OTLP endpoint). Auth headers are read natively by the exporters.
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=http://otel-collector:4318
# OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS=authorization=Bearer%20<token>
OTEL_SERVICE_NAME=nora-control-plane

# Prometheus pull — metrics only (0 or empty disables). Defaults to loopback;
# the scrape surface is unauthenticated and exposes agent/model/provider labels,
# so widen the bind only behind an internal network or firewall.
NORA_OTEL_PROMETHEUS_PORT=9464
NORA_OTEL_PROMETHEUS_HOST=127.0.0.1

You can run either exporter or both. Spans are OTLP-only — Prometheus carries metrics, not traces. With the Prometheus exporter on, scrape http://<backend-host>:9464/metrics.

Cost accuracy

The nora.agent.cost.usd counter is emitted unrounded per exchange (sub-cent values accumulate accurately), using COST_PER_1K_TOKENS and the optional per-model COST_MODEL_RATES_JSON map — see environment variables. Configure those rates to match your providers for meaningful cost dashboards.

Verify

With Prometheus enabled:

curl -s http://localhost:9464/metrics | grep -E 'gen_ai_client_token_usage|nora_agent_cost_usd'

Drive one agent chat, then re-scrape — the token histogram and cost counter will carry your agent, model, runtime family, and sandbox profile labels. For a NemoClaw smoke, deploy an OpenClaw agent with sandbox_profile=nemoclaw; the export should show nora.runtime.family=openclaw and nora.sandbox.profile=nemoclaw without any API-key labels.

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OpenTelemetry export

OpenTelemetry export

What gets exported

Enable it

Cost accuracy

Verify

​OpenTelemetry export

​What gets exported

​Enable it

​Cost accuracy

​Verify

OpenTelemetry export

What gets exported

Enable it

Cost accuracy

Verify