OpenTelemetry Instrumentation for Model Context Protocol (MCP)

Automatic OpenTelemetry instrumentation for the Model Context Protocol SDK, enabling observability and telemetry collection for MCP-based applications with zero configuration required.

Version 1.0.4 - Production ready with enhanced OTEL headers parsing and streamlined configuration.

🆕 What’s New in v1.0.4: Removed deprecated DYNATRACE_API_TOKEN support for cleaner configuration. Now uses only standard OpenTelemetry OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS with improved parsing and validation.

Features

• 🔄 Automatic instrumentation of MCP tool calls
• 📊 Built-in OpenTelemetry setup with NodeSDK
• 🚀 Drop-in solution - no manual OpenTelemetry configuration needed
• 📈 OTLP export with Dynatrace support out of the box
• 🔍 Comprehensive tracing of tool execution with error handling
• ⚡ Zero-code integration - just import and go
• 🔗 Parent span stitching - maintains trace context across tool executions

Installation

npm install @theharithsa/opentelemetry-instrumentation-mcp

Quick Start

Option 1: Auto-Registration (Recommended)

Simply import the register module at the very top of your application entry point:

// At the top of your src/index.ts or main file
import '@theharithsa/opentelemetry-instrumentation-mcp/register';

// Your existing MCP server code...
import { McpServer } from '@modelcontextprotocol/sdk';
// ... rest of your application

Option 2: Manual Setup

If you need more control over the OpenTelemetry configuration:

import { McpInstrumentation } from '@theharithsa/opentelemetry-instrumentation-mcp';
import { NodeSDK } from '@opentelemetry/sdk-node';
import { getNodeAutoInstrumentations } from '@opentelemetry/auto-instrumentations-node';

const sdk = new NodeSDK({
  instrumentations: [
    getNodeAutoInstrumentations(),
    new McpInstrumentation(),
  ],
  // Your custom configuration...
});

sdk.start();

Environment Variables

When using the auto-registration approach, configure these environment variables:

# Required: OTLP endpoint for trace export
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=https://your-dynatrace-endpoint.com/api/v2/otlp/v1/traces

# Required: OTLP headers including authorization