feat: add OTLP export and W3C trace context propagation to tracing

development_docs/traces.md

@@ -2,22 +2,90 @@
 
 ## Server traces
 
-For debugging purposes, we emit OpenTelemetry traces from the server. We emit traces to `~/.marimo/traces/spans.jsonl`. We don't emit any sensitive information in the traces, and these traces stay local to your machine. The traces get wiped on each sever restart.
+For debugging purposes, we emit OpenTelemetry traces from the server. By
+default, traces are written to a local JSONL file. When an OTLP endpoint is
+configured, traces are exported via OTLP instead, letting marimo participate in
+distributed tracing stacks such as Jaeger, Grafana Tempo, or GCP Cloud Trace.
 
-You can analyze the traces using tools like Jaeger or Zipkin, or our marimo notebook:
+### Prerequisites
+
+Tracing requires the `otel` extra (or a development install, which includes
+the same packages):
 
 ```bash
-marimo edit scripts/analyze_traces.py
+pip install "marimo[otel]"
 ```
 
 ### Enable Traces
 
-To enable traces, set the `MARIMO_TRACING` environment variable to `true`:
+Set `MARIMO_TRACING=true` to turn tracing on:
+
+```bash
+MARIMO_TRACING=true marimo run notebook.py
+```
+
+### Local file export (default)
+
+With no additional configuration, spans are written to
+`~/.marimo/traces/spans.jsonl` (the exact path depends on your platform's
+XDG state directory). The file is cleared on each server restart and never
+leaves your machine.
+
+You can analyze local traces with Jaeger, Zipkin, or the bundled notebook:
 
 ```bash
-MARIMO_TRACING=true ./your_server_command
+marimo edit scripts/analyze_traces.py
 ```
 
+### OTLP export
+
+To export traces to a remote collector, set the standard OpenTelemetry
+environment variables:
+
+```bash
+MARIMO_TRACING=true \
+OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=http://localhost:4318 \
+OTEL_SERVICE_NAME=marimo \
+marimo run notebook.py
+```
+
+| Variable | Purpose | Default |
+|---|---|---|
+| `OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT` | Endpoint of an OTLP collector for all signals | _(unset — file export)_ |
+| `OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TRACES_ENDPOINT` | Trace-specific OTLP endpoint; takes precedence over `OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT` | _(unset)_ |
+| `OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL` | OTLP protocol for all signals: `http/protobuf` or `grpc` | `http/protobuf` |
+| `OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TRACES_PROTOCOL` | Trace-specific OTLP protocol; takes precedence over `OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL` | _(unset)_ |
+| `OTEL_SERVICE_NAME` | `service.name` resource attribute | `marimo` |
+| `OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES` | Comma-separated `key=value` pairs added to the resource | _(empty)_ |
+
+With the default `http/protobuf` protocol, a generic
+`OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT` is treated by the OpenTelemetry exporter as the
+collector base URL and traces are sent to `/v1/traces`. For example,
+`http://localhost:4318` exports traces to `http://localhost:4318/v1/traces`.
+If you set `OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TRACES_ENDPOINT`, include the full traces path,
+for example `http://localhost:4318/v1/traces`.
+
+For gRPC collectors, set the protocol explicitly:
+
+```bash
+MARIMO_TRACING=true \
+OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL=grpc \
+OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=http://localhost:4317 \
+marimo run notebook.py
+```
+
+If the selected OTLP exporter package is not installed, or the configured
+protocol is unsupported, marimo logs a warning and falls back to the local file
+exporter.
+
+### Distributed trace propagation
+
+The `OpenTelemetryMiddleware` extracts incoming W3C `traceparent` headers, so
+when another service calls marimo (e.g., via the MCP HTTP endpoint), the
+resulting spans are linked as children of the caller's trace. No extra
+configuration is needed — propagation works automatically whenever tracing is
+enabled.
+
 ## Profiling the kernel
 
 You can generate profiling statistics of the kernel in edit mode using the

marimo/_server/api/middleware.py

@@ -202,9 +202,14 @@ async def dispatch(
         if not GLOBAL_SETTINGS.TRACING:
             return await call_next(request)
 
+        from opentelemetry.propagate import extract
+
+        ctx = extract(carrier=request.headers)
+
         with server_tracer.start_as_current_span(
             f"{request.method} {request.url.path}",
             kind=self.trace.SpanKind.SERVER,
+            context=ctx,
             attributes={
                 "http.method": request.method,
                 "http.target": request.url.path or "",

marimo/_tracer.py

@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
 
 import os
 from contextlib import contextmanager
-from typing import TYPE_CHECKING, Any, cast
+from typing import TYPE_CHECKING, Any, Literal, cast
 
 from marimo import _loggers
 from marimo._config.settings import GLOBAL_SETTINGS
@@ -81,6 +81,37 @@ def start_as_current_span(self, *args: Any, **kwargs: Any) -> Any:
 
 
 TRACE_FILENAME = os.path.join("traces", "spans.jsonl")
+OTLPProtocol = Literal["grpc", "http/protobuf"]
+
+
+def _otlp_endpoint_configured() -> bool:
+    return bool(
+        os.environ.get("OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TRACES_ENDPOINT")
+        or os.environ.get("OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT")
+    )
+
+
+def _otlp_protocol() -> OTLPProtocol | None:
+    protocol = (
+        (
+            os.environ.get("OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TRACES_PROTOCOL")
+            or os.environ.get("OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL")
+            or "http/protobuf"
+        )
+        .strip()
+        .lower()
+    )
+    protocol = protocol or "http/protobuf"
+
+    if protocol in ("grpc", "http/protobuf"):
+        return cast(OTLPProtocol, protocol)
+
+    LOGGER.warning(
+        "Unsupported OTLP protocol %r; expected 'grpc' or "
+        "'http/protobuf'. Falling back to file export.",
+        protocol,
+    )
+    return None
 
 
 def _set_tracer_provider() -> None:
@@ -90,6 +121,7 @@ def _set_tracer_provider() -> None:
     DependencyManager.opentelemetry.require("for tracing.")
 
     from opentelemetry import trace
+    from opentelemetry.sdk.resources import Resource
     from opentelemetry.sdk.trace import ReadableSpan, TracerProvider
     from opentelemetry.sdk.trace.export import (
         BatchSpanProcessor,
@@ -103,37 +135,80 @@ def _set_tracer_provider() -> None:
     except Exception:
         return
 
-    class FileExporter(SpanExporter):
-        def __init__(self, file_path: Path) -> None:
-            self.file_path = file_path
-            # Clear file
-            self.file_path.write_bytes(b"")
-
-        def export(self, spans: Sequence[ReadableSpan]) -> SpanExportResult:
-            try:
-                with self.file_path.open("a", encoding="utf-8") as f:
-                    for span in spans:
-                        f.write(span.to_json(cast(Any, None)))
-                        f.write("\n")
-                return SpanExportResult.SUCCESS
-            except Exception as e:
-                LOGGER.exception(e)
-                return SpanExportResult.FAILURE
-
-        def shutdown(self) -> None:
-            pass
-
-    # Create a directory for logs if it doesn't exist
-    config_ready = ConfigReader.for_filename(TRACE_FILENAME)
-    filepath = config_ready.filepath
-    filepath.parent.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)
-
-    # Create a file exporter
-    file_exporter: FileExporter = FileExporter(filepath)
-
-    provider = TracerProvider()
-    processor = BatchSpanProcessor(file_exporter)
-    provider.add_span_processor(processor)
+    otlp_protocol = _otlp_protocol() if _otlp_endpoint_configured() else None
+    OTLPSpanExporter: Any | None = None
+    if otlp_protocol == "grpc":
+        try:
+            from opentelemetry.exporter.otlp.proto.grpc.trace_exporter import (
+                OTLPSpanExporter as GrpcOTLPSpanExporter,
+            )
+
+            OTLPSpanExporter = GrpcOTLPSpanExporter
+        except ImportError:
+            LOGGER.warning(
+                "opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-proto-grpc not installed; "
+                "install marimo[otel] for OTLP export. Falling back to file export.",
+            )
+    elif otlp_protocol == "http/protobuf":
+        try:
+            from opentelemetry.exporter.otlp.proto.http.trace_exporter import (
+                OTLPSpanExporter as HttpOTLPSpanExporter,
+            )
+
+            OTLPSpanExporter = HttpOTLPSpanExporter
+        except ImportError:
+            LOGGER.warning(
+                "opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-proto-http not installed; "
+                "install marimo[otel] for OTLP export. Falling back to file export.",
+            )
+
+    if OTLPSpanExporter is not None:
+        resource = Resource.create(
+            {
+                "service.name": "marimo",
+            },
+        )
+        provider = TracerProvider(resource=resource)
+        provider.add_span_processor(
+            BatchSpanProcessor(
+                OTLPSpanExporter(),
+            ),
+        )
+        LOGGER.debug(
+            "OTel tracer: OTLP export via %s",
+            otlp_protocol,
+        )
+    else:
+
+        class FileExporter(SpanExporter):
+            def __init__(self, file_path: Path) -> None:
+                self.file_path = file_path
+                self.file_path.write_bytes(b"")
+
+            def export(
+                self,
+                spans: Sequence[ReadableSpan],
+            ) -> SpanExportResult:
+                try:
+                    with self.file_path.open("a", encoding="utf-8") as f:
+                        for span in spans:
+                            f.write(span.to_json(cast(Any, None)))
+                            f.write("\n")
+                    return SpanExportResult.SUCCESS
+                except Exception as e:
+                    LOGGER.exception(e)
+                    return SpanExportResult.FAILURE
+
+            def shutdown(self) -> None:
+                pass
+
+        config_ready = ConfigReader.for_filename(TRACE_FILENAME)
+        filepath = config_ready.filepath
+        filepath.parent.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)
+
+        provider = TracerProvider()
+        provider.add_span_processor(BatchSpanProcessor(FileExporter(filepath)))
+        LOGGER.debug("OTel tracer: file export to %s", filepath)
 
     # Sets the global default tracer provider
     trace.set_tracer_provider(provider)

pyproject.toml

@@ -116,13 +116,22 @@ mcp = [
     "pydantic>2",
 ]
 
+otel = [
+    "opentelemetry-api~=1.28.0",
+    "opentelemetry-sdk~=1.28.0",
+    "opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-proto-http~=1.28.0",
+    "opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-proto-grpc~=1.28.0",
+]
+
 [dependency-groups]
 dev = [
     # Typo checking
     "typos~=1.23.6",
     # For tracing debugging
     "opentelemetry-api~=1.28.0",
     "opentelemetry-sdk~=1.28.0",
+    "opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-proto-http~=1.28.0",
+    "opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-proto-grpc~=1.28.0",
     # For SQL
     "duckdb>=1.0.0",
     "sqlglot[c]>=26.8.0",