How OpenTelemetry Is Structured and a First Setup in .NET: SDK, Instrumentation, OTLP, Resource and the Aspire Dashboard
To add OpenTelemetry to .NET you configure the resource, instrumentation and UseOtlpExporter through AddOpenTelemetry; since ILogger, Meter and ActivitySource are already in the platform, the SDK just collects them and sends them over OTLP. We set up Bookstore.Api with the 1.21 packages, open the slow checkout's trace in the standalone Aspire Dashboard, and see AddService in code overriding OTEL_SERVICE_NAME and silent export errors.
15 Nov 2026
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10 min
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