Azure Monitor OpenTelemetry Distro for Python Skill

Azure Monitor OpenTelemetry Distro for Python

One-line setup for Application Insights with OpenTelemetry auto-instrumentation.

Installation

pip install azure-monitor-opentelemetry

Environment Variables

APPLICATIONINSIGHTS_CONNECTION_STRING=InstrumentationKey=xxx;IngestionEndpoint=https://xxx.in.applicationinsights.azure.com/  # Required for all auth methods
AZURE_TOKEN_CREDENTIALS=prod # Required only if DefaultAzureCredential is used in production

Quick Start

from azure.monitor.opentelemetry import configure_azure_monitor

# One-line setup - reads connection string from environment
configure_azure_monitor()

# Your application code...

Explicit Configuration

from azure.monitor.opentelemetry import configure_azure_monitor

configure_azure_monitor(
    connection_string="InstrumentationKey=xxx;IngestionEndpoint=https://xxx.in.applicationinsights.azure.com/"
)

With Flask

from flask import Flask
from azure.monitor.opentelemetry import configure_azure_monitor

configure_azure_monitor()

app = Flask(__name__)

@app.route("/")
def hello():
    return "Hello, World!"

if __name__ == "__main__":
    app.run()

With Django

# settings.py
from azure.monitor.opentelemetry import configure_azure_monitor

configure_azure_monitor()

# Django settings...

With FastAPI

from fastapi import FastAPI
from azure.monitor.opentelemetry import configure_azure_monitor

configure_azure_monitor()

app = FastAPI()

@app.get("/")
async def root():
    return {"message": "Hello World"}

Custom Traces

from opentelemetry import trace
from azure.monitor.opentelemetry import configure_azure_monitor

configure_azure_monitor()

tracer = trace.get_tracer(__name__)

with tracer.start_as_current_span("my-operation") as span:
    span.set_attribute("custom.attribute", "value")
    # Do work...

Custom Metrics

from opentelemetry import metrics
from azure.monitor.opentelemetry import configure_azure_monitor

configure_azure_monitor()

meter = metrics.get_meter(__name__)
counter = meter.create_counter("my_counter")

counter.add(1, {"dimension": "value"})

Custom Logs

import logging
from azure.monitor.opentelemetry import configure_azure_monitor

configure_azure_monitor()

logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
logger.setLevel(logging.INFO)

logger.info("This will appear in Application Insights")
logger.error("Errors are captured too", exc_info=True)

Sampling

from azure.monitor.opentelemetry import configure_azure_monitor

# Sample 10% of requests
configure_azure_monitor(
    sampling_ratio=0.1
)

Cloud Role Name

Set cloud role name for Application Map:

from azure.monitor.opentelemetry import configure_azure_monitor
from opentelemetry.sdk.resources import Resource, SERVICE_NAME

configure_azure_monitor(
    resource=Resource.create({SERVICE_NAME: "my-service-name"})
)

Disable Specific Instrumentations

from azure.monitor.opentelemetry import configure_azure_monitor

configure_azure_monitor(
    instrumentations=["flask", "requests"]  # Only enable these
)

Enable Live Metrics

from azure.monitor.opentelemetry import configure_azure_monitor

configure_azure_monitor(
    enable_live_metrics=True
)

Azure AD Authentication

from azure.monitor.opentelemetry import configure_azure_monitor
from azure.identity import DefaultAzureCredential, ManagedIdentityCredential

# Local dev: DefaultAzureCredential. Production: set AZURE_TOKEN_CREDENTIALS=prod or AZURE_TOKEN_CREDENTIALS=<specific_credential>
credential = DefaultAzureCredential(require_envvar=True)
# Or use a specific credential directly in production:
# See https://learn.microsoft.com/python/api/overview/azure/identity-readme?view=azure-python#credential-classes
# credential = ManagedIdentityCredential()

configure_azure_monitor(
    credential=credential
)

Auto-Instrumentations Included

| Library | Telemetry Type | |---------|---------------| | Flask | Traces | | Django | Traces | | FastAPI | Traces | | Requests | Traces | | urllib3 | Traces | | httpx | Traces | | aiohttp | Traces | | psycopg2 | Traces | | pymysql | Traces | | pymongo | Traces | | redis | Traces |

Configuration Options

| Parameter | Description | Default | |-----------|-------------|---------| | connection_string | Application Insights connection string | From env var | | credential | Azure credential for AAD auth | None | | sampling_ratio | Sampling rate (0.0 to 1.0) | 1.0 | | resource | OpenTelemetry Resource | Auto-detected | | instrumentations | List of instrumentations to enable | All | | enable_live_metrics | Enable Live Metrics stream | False |

Best Practices

Call configure_azure_monitor() early — Before importing instrumented libraries
Use environment variables for connection string in production
Set cloud role name for multi-service applications
Enable sampling in high-traffic applications
Use structured logging for better log analytics queries
Add custom attributes to spans for better debugging
Use AAD authentication for production workloads

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