Documentation Grafana Cloud Instrument and send data Grafana Alloy Reference Components otelcol otelcol.exporter.datadog

otelcol.exporter.datadog

otelcol.exporter.datadog accepts metrics and traces telemetry data from other otelcol components and sends it to Datadog.

You can specify multiple otelcol.exporter.datadog components by giving them different labels.

Usage

Alloy Copy

otelcol.exporter.datadog "<LABEL>" {
    api {
        api_key = "<YOUR_API_KEY_HERE>"
    }
}

Arguments

You can use the following arguments with otelcol.exporter.datadog:

If hostname is unset, the hostname is determined automatically. For more information, refer to the Datadog Fallback hostname logic documentation. This option won’t change the hostname applied to metrics or traces if they already have hostname-identifying attributes.

Blocks

You can use the following blocks with otelcol.exporter.datadog:

The > symbol indicates deeper levels of nesting. For example, metrics > summaries refers to a summaries block defined inside a metrics block.

api

The api block configures authentication with the Datadog API. This is required to send telemetry to Datadog. If you don’t provide the api block, you can’t send telemetry to Datadog.

The following arguments are supported:

client

The client block configures the HTTP client used by the component. Not all fields are supported by the Datadog Exporter.

The following arguments are supported:

debug_metrics

host_metadata

The host_metadata block configures the host metadata configuration. Host metadata is the information used to populate the infrastructure list and the host map, and provide host tags functionality within the Datadog app.

The following arguments are supported:

By default, the exporter only sends host metadata for a single host, whose name is chosen according to host_metadata::hostname_source.

Valid values for hostname_source are:

• "first_resource" picks the host metadata hostname from the resource attributes on the first OTLP payload that gets to the exporter. If the first payload lacks hostname-like attributes, it will fallback to ‘config_or_system’ behavior. Don’t use this hostname source if receiving data from multiple hosts.
• "config_or_system" picks the host metadata hostname from the ‘hostname’ setting, falling back to system and cloud provider APIs.

logs

The logs block configures the logs exporter settings.

The following arguments are supported:

If use_compression is disabled, compression_level has no effect.

If endpoint is unset, the value is obtained through the site parameter in the [api][] section.

metrics

The metrics block configures Metric specific exporter settings.

The following arguments are supported:

Any of the subset of resource attributes in the semantic mapping list are converted to Datadog conventions and set to metric tags whether resource_attributes_as_tags is enabled or not.

If endpoint is unset, the value is obtained through the site parameter in the [api][] section.

exporter

The exporter block configures the metric exporter settings.

The following arguments are supported:

histograms

The histograms block configures the histogram settings.

The following arguments are supported:

Valid values for mode are:

• "distributions" to report metrics as Datadog distributions (recommended).
• "nobuckets" to not report bucket metrics.
• "counters" to report one metric per histogram bucket.

summaries

The summaries block configures the summary settings.

The following arguments are supported:

Valid values for mode are:

• "noquantiles" to not report quantile metrics.
• "gauges" to report one gauge metric per quantile.

sums

The sums block configures the sums settings.

The following arguments are supported:

Valid values for cumulative_monotonic_mode are:

• "to_delta" to calculate delta for sum in the client side and report as Datadog counts.
• "raw_value" to report the raw value as a Datadog gauge.

Valid values for initial_cumulative_monotonic_value are:

• "auto" reports the initial value if its start timestamp is set, and it happens after the process was started.
• "drop" always drops the initial value.
• "keep" always reports the initial value.

retry_on_failure

The retry_on_failure block configures how failed requests to Datadog are retried.

sending_queue

The sending_queue block configures queueing and batching for the exporter.

batch

The batch block configures batching requests based on a timeout and a minimum number of items. By default, the batch block is not used.

traces

The traces block configures the trace exporter settings.

The following arguments are supported:

If compute_stats_by_span_kind is disabled, only top-level and measured spans will have stats computed. If you are sending OTel traces and want stats on non-top-level spans, this flag must be set to true. If you are sending OTel traces and don’t want stats computed by span kind, you must disable this flag and disable compute_top_level_by_span_kind.

If endpoint is unset, the value is obtained through the site parameter in the [api][] section.

Exported fields

The following fields are exported and can be referenced by other components:

input accepts otelcol.Consumer data for any telemetry signal (metrics, logs, or traces).

Component health

otelcol.exporter.datadog is only reported as unhealthy if given an invalid configuration.

Debug information

otelcol.exporter.datadog doesn’t expose any component-specific debug information.

Example

Forward Prometheus Metrics

This example forwards Prometheus metrics from Alloy through a receiver for conversion to Open Telemetry format before finally sending them to Datadog. If you are using the US Datadog APIs, the api field is required for the exporter to function.

Alloy Copy

prometheus.exporter.self "default" {
}

prometheus.scrape "metamonitoring" {
  targets    = prometheus.exporter.self.default.targets
  forward_to = [otelcol.receiver.prometheus.default.receiver]
}

otelcol.receiver.prometheus "default" {
  output {
    metrics = [otelcol.exporter.datadog.default.input]
  }
}


otelcol.exporter.datadog "default" {
    api {
        api_key = "API_KEY"
    }

     metrics {
        endpoint = "https://api.ap1.datadoghq.com"
        resource_attributes_as_tags = true
    }
}

Full OTel pipeline

This example forwards metrics and traces received in Datadog format to Alloy, converts them to OTel format, and exports them to Datadog.

Alloy Copy

otelcol.receiver.datadog "default" {
    output {
        metrics = [otelcol.exporter.otlp.default.input, otelcol.exporter.datadog.default input]
        traces  = [otelcol.exporter.otlp.default.input, otelcol.exporter.datadog.default.input]
    }
}

otelcol.exporter.otlp "default" {
    client {
        endpoint = "database:4317"
    }
}

otelcol.exporter.datadog "default" {
    client {
        timeout = "10s"
    }

    api {
        api_key             = "abc"
        fail_on_invalid_key = true
    }

    traces {
        endpoint             = "https://trace.agent.datadoghq.com"
        ignore_resources     = ["(GET|POST) /healthcheck"]
        span_name_remappings = {
            "instrumentation:express.server" = "express",
        }
    }

    metrics {
        delta_ttl = 1200
        endpoint  = "https://api.datadoghq.com"

        exporter {
            resource_attributes_as_tags = true
        }

        histograms {
            mode = "counters"
        }

        sums {
            initial_cumulative_monotonic_value = "keep"
        }

        summaries {
            mode = "noquantiles"
        }
    }
}

Compatible components

otelcol.exporter.datadog has exports that can be consumed by the following components:

• Components that consume OpenTelemetry otelcol.Consumer