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Observability (metrics and tracing)

The MCP server can expose Prometheus metrics and supports OpenTelemetry distributed tracing, following the OTel MCP semantic conventions.

Metrics require the SSE or streamable-http transport. Tracing uses standard OTEL_* environment variables and works independently of --metrics.

What you’ll achieve

You can scrape MCP operation metrics or export traces to Tempo or Grafana Cloud while the server runs over HTTP transports.

Before you begin

  • The server running with SSE or streamable-http (metrics are not available with stdio).

Enable Prometheus metrics

When using SSE or streamable HTTP transports, enable Prometheus metrics with --metrics:

Bash 
# Metrics on the main server at /metrics
./mcp-grafana -t streamable-http --metrics
Bash 
# Metrics on a separate listen address
./mcp-grafana -t streamable-http --metrics --metrics-address :9090

Available metrics:

MetricTypeDescription
mcp_server_operation_duration_secondsHistogramMCP operation duration (labels: mcp_method_name, gen_ai_tool_name, error_type, network_transport, mcp_protocol_version)
mcp_server_session_duration_secondsHistogramMCP client session duration (labels: network_transport, mcp_protocol_version)
http_server_request_duration_secondsHistogramHTTP server request duration (from otelhttp)

Note: Metrics are only available when using SSE or streamable HTTP transports. They are not available with stdio transport.

Enable OpenTelemetry tracing

When OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT is set, the server exports traces via OTLP/gRPC.

Local example:

Bash 
# Send traces to a local Tempo instance
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=http://localhost:4317 \
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_INSECURE=true \
./mcp-grafana -t streamable-http

Grafana Cloud example:

Bash 
# Send traces to Grafana Cloud with authentication
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=https://tempo-us-central1.grafana.net:443 \
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS="Authorization=Basic ..." \
./mcp-grafana -t streamable-http

Tool call spans follow naming like tools/call <tool_name> and include attributes such as gen_ai.tool.name, mcp.method.name, and mcp.session.id. The server supports W3C trace context propagation from the _meta field of tool call requests.

Run with Docker (metrics and tracing)

Bash 
docker run --rm -p 8000:8000 \
  -e GRAFANA_URL=http://localhost:3000 \
  -e GRAFANA_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN=<your token> \
  -e OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=http://tempo:4317 \
  -e OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_INSECURE=true \
  grafana/mcp-grafana \
  -t streamable-http --metrics

Next steps