Laravel Monitoring

OTLP-first observability for Laravel — traces, logs, and metrics via Grafana Alloy.

• Distributed tracing with W3C traceparent propagation
• Auto-instrumentation for DB queries, HTTP client, cache, and queue jobs
• HTTP request metrics (counter + histogram) for Grafana dashboards
• OTLP log shipping as a native Laravel log channel
• Custom counters, gauges, and histograms
• Exception reporting on active spans
• All telemetry exported as OTLP/JSON to Grafana Alloy (or any OTLP-compatible collector)
• No scheduler, no cron — everything flushes per-request automatically

Requirements

• PHP 8.4+
• Laravel 12 or 13
• An OTLP-compatible collector (e.g., Grafana Alloy)

Installation

composer require modus-digital/laravel-monitoring

Publish the config file:

php artisan vendor:publish --tag="monitoring-config"

Configuration

Add these to your .env:

MONITORING_ENABLED=true
MONITORING_OTLP_ENDPOINT=http://alloy:4318
MONITORING_SERVICE_NAME=my-app
MONITORING_ENVIRONMENT=production

Full config reference

// config/monitoring.php
return [
    'enabled' => env('MONITORING_ENABLED', true),

    'service' => [
        'name'        => env('MONITORING_SERVICE_NAME'),        // defaults to config('app.name')
        'environment' => env('MONITORING_ENVIRONMENT'),          // defaults to config('app.env')
        'instance_id' => env('MONITORING_SERVICE_INSTANCE_ID'),  // defaults to config('app.url')
    ],

    'otlp' => [
        'endpoint' => env('MONITORING_OTLP_ENDPOINT', 'http://127.0.0.1:4318'),
        'headers'  => env('MONITORING_OTLP_HEADERS'),  // comma-separated: 'X-Scope-OrgID=tenant1,Authorization=Basic abc'
        'timeout'  => env('MONITORING_OTLP_TIMEOUT', 3),
    ],

    'traces' => [
        'enabled'     => env('MONITORING_TRACES_ENABLED', true),
        'sample_rate' => env('MONITORING_TRACE_SAMPLE_RATE', 1.0),  // 0.0 to 1.0
    ],

    'logs' => [
        'enabled' => env('MONITORING_LOGS_ENABLED', true),
    ],

    'metrics' => [
        'enabled' => env('MONITORING_METRICS_ENABLED', true),
    ],

    // Routes to exclude from tracing. Matches against both route names and URL paths.
    'middleware' => [
        'exclude' => [],
    ],

    // Auto-instrumentation creates child spans for these operations.
    'auto_instrumentation' => [
        'db'          => env('MONITORING_INSTRUMENT_DB', true),
        'http_client' => env('MONITORING_INSTRUMENT_HTTP_CLIENT', true),
        'cache'       => env('MONITORING_INSTRUMENT_CACHE', true),
        'queue'       => env('MONITORING_INSTRUMENT_QUEUE', true),
    ],
];

Middleware Setup

Register the StartRequestTrace middleware to automatically trace HTTP requests:

// bootstrap/app.php (Laravel 12+)
->withMiddleware(function (Middleware $middleware) {
    $middleware->append(\ModusDigital\LaravelMonitoring\Http\Middleware\StartRequestTrace::class);
})

This middleware:

• Creates a root span for each HTTP request with SERVER kind
• Records http_requests_total counter and http_request_duration_ms histogram (even when tracing is unsampled)
• Parses incoming traceparent headers for distributed trace propagation
• Records http.method, http.route, http.status_code, and http.status_group attributes
• Sets ERROR status on 5xx responses
• Populates a RequestContext singleton for log correlation
• Respects the traces.sample_rate config and upstream sampling decisions
• Flushes all telemetry inline (after the response is sent)

Usage

Tracing

Wrap operations in spans using the Monitoring facade:

use ModusDigital\LaravelMonitoring\Facades\Monitoring;

// Automatic span — wraps a closure, records exceptions, rethrows
$result = Monitoring::span('orders.process', function () {
    return Order::process($data);
});

// Manual span — for more control
$span = Monitoring::startSpan('external.api.call');
$span->setAttribute('api.endpoint', 'https://api.example.com/v1/users');
try {
    $response = Http::get('https://api.example.com/v1/users');
    $span->setAttribute('http.status_code', $response->status());
} finally {
    $span->end();
}

Auto-Instrumentation

The package automatically creates child spans for common Laravel operations. Each can be toggled via config or env vars.

Database queries — db.query spans with SQL, driver, duration, and connection name:

MONITORING_INSTRUMENT_DB=true

HTTP client calls — http.client spans with method, URL, and status code. Sets ERROR status on 5xx responses:

MONITORING_INSTRUMENT_HTTP_CLIENT=true

Cache operations — cache.hit, cache.miss, cache.write, cache.forget spans with key and store:

MONITORING_INSTRUMENT_CACHE=true

Queue jobs — queue.job spans with job class, queue, connection, and attempt. Records exception events on failure:

MONITORING_INSTRUMENT_QUEUE=true

All auto-instrumentation requires an active parent span (created by the middleware). When a request is unsampled, listeners are no-ops.

Exception Handling

Report exceptions on the active trace span using the Monitoring facade:

// bootstrap/app.php
->withExceptions(function (Exceptions $exceptions) {
    $exceptions->reportable(function (Throwable $e) {
        \ModusDigital\LaravelMonitoring\Facades\Monitoring::reportException($e);
    });
})

This records an exception event on the active span with exception.type, exception.message, and exception.stacktrace, and sets the span status to ERROR. Safe to call when no active span exists (no-op).

Custom Metrics

Use the Monitoring facade or the monitoring() helper:

Counters

Counters only go up. Use them for totals (requests, orders, errors).

Monitoring::counter('orders_total', ['payment_method' => 'stripe'])->increment();
Monitoring::counter('orders_total', ['payment_method' => 'stripe'])->incrementBy(5);

// Or via the helper
monitoring()->counter('orders_total')->increment();

Gauges

Gauges go up and down. Use them for current values (queue depth, active users).

Monitoring::gauge('queue_depth', ['queue' => 'emails'])->set(42);
Monitoring::gauge('queue_depth', ['queue' => 'emails'])->increment();
Monitoring::gauge('queue_depth', ['queue' => 'emails'])->decrement();

Histograms

Histograms observe values into configurable buckets. Use them for durations, sizes, etc.

Monitoring::histogram('response_time_ms', ['endpoint' => '/api/users'])->observe(123.5);

// Custom buckets (default: 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 250, 500, 1000, 2500, 5000, 10000)
Monitoring::histogram('payload_size_bytes', [], [100, 500, 1000, 5000, 10000])->observe(2048);

Labels

All metric types accept an optional labels array. Label order doesn't matter — ['a' => '1', 'b' => '2'] and ['b' => '2', 'a' => '1'] resolve to the same metric.

Flushing

Telemetry is flushed automatically:

• Traces and logs: Flushed on terminate() after each HTTP response
• Metrics in queue jobs: Flushed automatically via Queue::after and Queue::failing hooks
• Manual flush: Call Monitoring::flush() to export all pending traces and metrics

No scheduler or cron job is needed.

Log Shipping

The package registers a monitoring log channel automatically. Add it to your logging stack:

// config/logging.php
'channels' => [
    'stack' => [
        'driver' => 'stack',
        'channels' => ['daily', 'monitoring'],
    ],
],

Log records are automatically enriched with trace context (trace_id, span_id, request_id, route, method, user_id) so you can correlate logs with traces in Grafana.

How It Works

1. The StartRequestTrace middleware creates a root span, records HTTP metrics, and populates RequestContext
2. Auto-instrumentation listeners create child spans for DB queries, HTTP client calls, cache operations, and queue jobs
3. Your app records custom spans and metrics via the Monitoring facade
4. The MonitoringLogProcessor enriches log records with trace context
5. The middleware ends the root span, flushes traces via OTLP/JSON to /v1/traces, and exports metrics to /v1/metrics
6. The OtlpLogHandler buffers log records and flushes them to /v1/logs on close
7. All in-memory, no cache driver or external state needed

All OTLP payloads include resource attributes (service.name, deployment.environment, service.instance.id) for identification in Grafana.

Architecture

Laravel App
  ├── StartRequestTrace (middleware)
  │     ├── Creates root Span (SERVER kind)
  │     ├── Records http_requests_total + http_request_duration_ms metrics
  │     ├── Populates RequestContext
  │     └── Flushes traces + metrics inline
  ├── Auto-Instrumentation (event listeners)
  │     ├── TraceDbQueries       → db.query child spans
  │     ├── TraceHttpClient      → http.client child spans
  │     ├── TraceCacheOperations → cache.hit/miss/write/forget child spans
  │     └── TraceQueueJobs       → queue.job root spans
  ├── Monitoring Facade
  │     ├── span() / startSpan()  → TracerContract → OtlpTracer
  │     ├── reportException()     → records exception on active span
  │     ├── counter() / gauge() / histogram()  → MetricRegistry
  │     └── flush()  → exports traces + metrics
  ├── Log Channel ("monitoring")
  │     ├── MonitoringLogProcessor (enriches with trace context)
  │     └── OtlpLogHandler → OtlpLogExporter
  └── OtlpTransport (shared HTTP/JSON client)
        ├── POST /v1/traces   (traces)
        ├── POST /v1/logs     (logs)
        └── POST /v1/metrics  (metrics)
              ↓
        Grafana Alloy → Tempo / Loki / Mimir

Testing

composer test              # Run tests (Pest)
composer test-coverage     # Tests with coverage
composer analyse           # PHPStan level 8
composer format            # Laravel Pint code style

Changelog

Please see CHANGELOG for more information on what has changed recently.

Credits

• Alex van Steenhoven
• All Contributors

License

The MIT License (MIT). Please see License File for more information.