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Elastic Observability stores and analyzes logs, metrics, and traces in Elasticsearch. OpenRouter sends traces to Elastic as OTLP HTTP/JSON with OpenTelemetry GenAI attributes, which Elastic’s LLM observability views use.
Broadcast sends traces only. It doesn’t send logs or metrics.

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Step 1: Get your Elastic endpoint and API key

OpenRouter sends traces to the Elastic Cloud Managed OTLP endpoint, which is available on Elastic Cloud Serverless and Elastic Cloud Hosted. The endpoint looks like https://<project-id>.ingest.<region>.<provider>.elastic.cloud:443 and uses an Elastic API key. APM Server and Integrations Server aren’t supported, because they don’t accept OTLP/HTTP JSON.

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Find your OTLP endpoint

  1. In Kibana, go to Add data > Application > OpenTelemetry.
  2. Copy the OTLP endpoint URL that Elastic shows for your deployment or project.
For more detail, see Elastic’s Managed OTLP endpoint documentation.

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Create an API key

  1. In Kibana, go to Stack Management > API keys, or create the key from the OpenTelemetry onboarding page.
  2. Create an API key that can write trace data.
  3. Copy the encoded API key.
See Elastic’s API key documentation for the required privileges.

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Step 2: Enable Broadcast in OpenRouter

Go to Settings > Observability and toggle Enable Broadcast.
Enable Broadcast

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Step 3: Configure Elastic Observability

Click the edit icon next to Elastic Observability and enter:
  • Endpoint: Your Elastic OTLP endpoint. OpenRouter appends /v1/traces for you, so enter the base URL. An endpoint that already ends in /v1 or /v1/traces also works.
  • API Key: Your encoded Elastic API key. OpenRouter sends it as Authorization: ApiKey <key>.
  • Headers (optional): Extra HTTP headers as JSON, for example {"X-Custom-Header": "value"}. Custom headers can’t override Authorization or Content-Type.
Elastic Observability Configuration

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Step 4: Test and save

Click Test Connection to verify the setup. The configuration only saves if the test passes. A 401 means Elastic rejected the API key.

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Step 5: Send a test trace

Make an API request through OpenRouter, then find the trace in Elastic.

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Viewing your traces

Elastic stores OpenRouter spans in the traces-generic.otel-default data stream with the service name openrouter.
  • Applications: In Kibana, open Observability > Applications > Service inventory and select the openrouter service.
  • Discover: Open Discover, pick a data view that covers traces-*, and search for a generation ID. For example:

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Trace attributes

OpenRouter traces include the following key attributes:

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Resource attributes

  • service.name: Always openrouter
  • openrouter.trace.id: The OpenRouter trace ID

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Span attributes

  • gen_ai.operation.name: The operation type (for example, chat)
  • gen_ai.system: The AI provider (for example, openai)
  • gen_ai.request.model: The requested model
  • gen_ai.response.model: The model that served the request
  • gen_ai.response.id: The OpenRouter generation ID
  • gen_ai.usage.input_tokens: Number of input tokens
  • gen_ai.usage.output_tokens: Number of output tokens
  • gen_ai.usage.total_tokens: Total tokens used
  • gen_ai.response.finish_reason: Why the generation ended (for example, stop)

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Custom Metadata

Custom metadata from the trace field is sent as span attributes under the trace.metadata.* namespace, so you can filter on it in Discover.

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Supported Metadata Keys

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Example

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Additional Context

  • The user field maps to user.id in span attributes.
  • The session_id field maps to session.id in span attributes.

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Troubleshooting

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Test Connection fails with 401

Elastic rejected the credentials. Check that the API key is the encoded value and that it can write trace data.

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Traces don’t appear

  1. Check the time range: Widen the Kibana time picker to include the request time.
  2. Check the endpoint: Use the OTLP endpoint from the OpenTelemetry onboarding page, not your Kibana or Elasticsearch URL.

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Additional resources

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Privacy Mode

When Privacy Mode is enabled for this destination, prompt and completion content is excluded from traces. All other trace data — token usage, costs, timing, model information, and custom metadata — is still sent normally. See Privacy Mode for details.