Workshop delivered with Arthur Picerna at Dutch Cloud Native Day 2026.

OpenTelemetry has become an essential open source framework for standardizing telemetry data. In this beginner-friendly hands-on lab, you’ll walk through the journey of instrumenting an application with OpenTelemetry and sending metrics, logs, and traces to the Grafana LGTM stack (Loki for logs, Grafana for visualization, Tempo for traces, and Prometheus for metrics).

You’ll learn common instrumentation approaches, such as adding application-level telemetry using the OpenTelemetry SDK, collecting basic infrastructure metrics with the OpenTelemetry Collector, and implementing cross-service communication with zero-code eBPF instrumentation. You’ll also apply practical customization techniques, such as enriching and sampling spans, tuning metrics, and adding your own signals when auto-instrumentation isn’t enough.

By instrumenting a sample application step by step, you’ll leave this lab with a clear roadmap for choosing the right OpenTelemetry instrumentation approach within your own environment.

By the end of the three hours, you will:

• Have a core understanding of the OpenTelemetry project and its key components
• Select the right level of instrumentation based on various use cases
• Understand how zero-code eBPF instrumentation helps reveal cross-service communication
• Instrument applications using OpenTelemetry SDKs
• Apply end-to-end instrumentation patterns to get started quickly and improve over time
• Send telemetry to the Grafana stack and understand how it’s used

Social

• https://lnkd.in/p/e9NCwmnm
• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/cloudnativenl_ebpf-grafana-opentelemetry-activity-7516807789965578240-ZoaL

The preparation checklist available here.

RSVP: https://www.meetup.com/grafana-friends-virtual-meetup-group/events/316934660

We’re back with the new Grafana ❤️‍🔥OpenTelemetry Community Call!

In this episode of the Grafana OTel Community Call, we’re joined by Bejal Lewis and Paschalis Tsilias from Grafana Labs to talk about OpAMP, the Open Agent Management Protocol, and what it takes to manage OpenTelemetry Collectors at scale. We’ll cover what OpAMP is and why fleet management matters, where the spec stands today (it’s still pre-release), and what it was like building production tooling on top of it.

We’ll also look at what went into adding the OpAMP extension to Grafana Alloy’s OTel Engine, what “GA” means for Grafana Fleet Management versus the maturity of the upstream spec, and where OpAMP is headed next.

Guests:

• Bejal Lewis
• Marko Bachvaroski
• Paschalis Tsilias

Host:

• Imma Valls

This event will be livestreamed on YouTube and published at the same link after the fact: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYLxme3CoZg

Join the conversation, bring your questions, and learn how OpenTelemetry evolves with contributions from across the community.

#opentelemetry #opamp #collector #grafana #observability

Social:

• https://lnkd.in/p/dWzET4iq

This lightning talk was presented at KCD Edinburgh 2026.

Companion repo: https://github.com/immavalls/ai-for-allyship

Using GenAI to draft community emails or presentation assets should save organizers time. However, default models often create a manual review loop where we can’t miss those nuances. Standard LLMs frequently fall back on biases: generating meetup images of only white men, missing gender-neutral nuances in non-English languages, or adopting an exclusionary tone that alienates underrepresented groups. To prevent this constant rework, we need to embed allyship skills and context directly into our AI tools. This talk explores how to design and build context-aware AI assistants tailored for community operations. We will look at how to inject the right cultural context, linguistic rules, and guardrails so your AI tools can catch exclusionary language and evaluate event assets for representation bias out of the box. Attendees will walk away with actionable blueprints to teach their own AI tools these vital allyship skills, shifting the operational burden away from manual human review.

Social

• https://lnkd.in/p/eNR6d-ZW

This talk was presented at Observability Summit EU 2026.

Localization is a powerful, although often overlooked, gateway to open-source contribution. For projects like OpenTelemetry, translating documentation forces you to dive deep into the project, understand the core terminology, and navigate your first pull request.

It is a brilliant way to build confidence, until the friction hits. Managing formatting, context-switching, and OTel glossary alignment can easily turn a single-page translation into a repetitive 4-hour task. The cognitive toil is real, and it can cause localization efforts to stall.

What if we could automate the drag while preserving the human connection?

In this lightning talk, we will explore an AI-powered workflow that abstracts away the mechanical overhead of OpenTelemetry documentation localization while keeping the human in the loop.

We’ll close with an open question for the ecosystem: If we lower the friction of contributing through automation, do we dilute the learning experience? Or can we actually make localization efforts sustainable, allowing new contributors to focus on learning about the project rather than fighting the linter?

Social

• https://lnkd.in/p/eRDVfDXU
• https://lnkd.in/p/edcfUsix

The preparation checklist available here.

RSVP: https://www.meetup.com/grafana-friends-virtual-meetup-group/events/316611496/

We’re back with the new Grafana ❤️‍🔥OpenTelemetry Community Call!

In this episode of the Grafana OTel Community Call, we’re joined by Sonal Gaud, code owner of otelhttp in opentelemetry-go-contrib and part of the core Go contributor team.

We’ll trace her path from writing test-coverage PRs to owning the instrumentation library that most Go services use to get HTTP traces and metrics for free — and go deep on how otelhttp actually works under the hood: context propagation, metrics/attributes via the Labeler, route cardinality, and how the library evolves alongside HTTP semantic conventions.

We’ll also talk about what it’s like to review PRs and protect backward compatibility in a widely used contrib package, and where otelhttp is headed next.

Guest:

• Sonal Gaud

Hosts:

• Imma Valls

This event will be livestreamed on YouTube and published at the same link after the fact: https://www.youtube.com/live/s6pQ-Taj2u0?si=RKpSPQrlF9We5elN

Join the conversation, bring your questions, and learn how this project is evolving with contributions from across the community.

Social:

• https://lnkd.in/p/dEceezYm
• https://lnkd.in/p/dSq-3fCf
• https://lnkd.in/p/dypxXdNk

This talk was presented at Grafana&Friends Stockholm. RSVP here: https://www.meetup.com/grafana-friends-stockholm/events/316301304/

Time for another Grafana & Friends Meetup after the summer break ☀️ 🌴, hosted by Magello 🎉

📕 Agenda
17:00 – 17:25: Drop-in, food/drink-grabbing and mingle
17:25 – 17:30: Introductions
17:30 – 18:00: Measuring what matters and setting the right expectations, Alex Ewerlöf
18:00 – 18:20: Mingle
18:20 – 18:50: Not Just Code: My First OpenTelemetry: Contribution & Hands-On to Open Source, Imma Valls
18:50 – 20:00: Mingle

1️⃣ Measuring what matters and setting the right expectations, Alex Ewerlöf
Service Levels (SLI/SLO) are even more relevant in the age of AI-generated blackboxes. In this talk, Alex talks about:

1. A foolproof methodology to get to meaningful metrics that tie to business objectives and are worth being on-call for
2. Exploring why the AI era makes Service Levels more relevant than ever, but there’s a catch.

Alex is an author and open source developer with 27 years experience and MSc in Systems Engineering from KTH. He has the last 8 years as SRE (senior and staff) helping large and small organizations measure what matters and set reasonable expectations while avoiding broken ownership. He has also spent the last few years building an AI powered (BYOK) app that replaces his role and if there’s time he may show a demo.

2️⃣ Not Just Code: My First OpenTelemetry: Contribution & Hands-On to Open Source, Imma Valls
Starting in open source can feel intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. In this session, I will share my journey into OpenTelemetry and the CNCF ecosystem, explore both code and non-code contribution paths, and demonstrate how to create and submit a pull request in a real open source project.
This session will highlight concrete next steps: LFX Mentorship, Outreachy, and Google Summer of Code, programs that offer mentorship and visibility to help you make that first contribution with support. Whether you’re a student or working professional, you’ll leave with a clear first step to take today.**

Imma Valls is a Staff Developer Advocate at Grafana Labs and an OpenTelemetry maintainer for the Spanish localization docs.

📍Location
Magello office: Västgötagatan 2, 118 27 Stockholm | https://maps.app.goo.gl/FPhEqLjttBHEneEt8
Take the stairs to the left after entering the building. If anyone is late, dial “Patrik Magello Group” on the door phone.

Food
There will be vegan/vegetarian food and beverages at the event; if you have any allergies or other food preferences, please let us know at least 48 hours before the event!

Photo and video
We may take photos and record videos during the event. If you prefer not to be captured on camera, please let the photographer know when you arrive.
If you feel sick, stay at home.

We are looking forward to seeing you 🎉

Social

• https://lnkd.in/p/e9p3MPA4

This talk was presented at Grafana&Friends Kathmandu.

Meet our speaker! 🎤

We’re excited to welcome Imma Valls Bernaus, Staff Developer Advocate at Grafana Labs.

She will be presenting “Not Just Code: My First OpenTelemetry Contribution and Your Hands-On Guide to Open Source,” the story of her own first contribution, and a practical guide to making yours.

If you’ve ever looked at an open source project and wondered where to even begin, this one is for you.

📅 Sunday, Aug 2
⏰ 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM (NPT)
📍 Online: Google Meet

Social

• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/grafana-opentelemetry-opensource-share-7487919920211451905-CqdX/
• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/imma-valls_grafana-opentelemetry-opensource-activity-7488481005889052672-MLhC

First time hosting the Grafana OpenTelemetry Community Calls, with a preparation checklist available here.

Recording

RSVP: https://www.meetup.com/grafana-friends-virtual-meetup-group/events/315676803

We’re back with the new Grafana ❤️‍🔥OpenTelemetry Community Call!

In this episode of the Grafana OTel Community Call, we’re exploring OpenTelemetry eBPF Instrumentation (OBI). OpenTelemetry eBPF Instrumentation (OBI) offers a powerful way to instrument applications at the system kernel level, capturing essential “RED metrics” — request rate, error rate, and duration — and network flows without requiring code changes, rebuilds, or redeployments.

We will cover the project’s architecture, discuss its origins as Grafana Beyla, and look ahead to the roadmap for language and runtime coverage.

Guests:

• Mario Macías
• Nikola Grcevski

Hosts:

• Imma Valls

This event will be livestreamed on YouTube and published on the same link after the fact: https://www.youtube.com/live/VEFn_ljZhCw?si=UU1x7yA46C_kZuRL

Join the conversation, bring your questions, and learn how this project is evolving with contributions from across the community.

Social:

• https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7483045252992331776/

RSVP: https://grafana.com/go/webinar/mastering-code-based-instrumentation-with-opentelemetry-and-grafana/

A practical guide to code-based OpenTelemetry instrumentation with Grafana

Building on our popular “Intro to OpenTelemetry” webinar, we are excited to present you with this webinar focused on advanced OpenTelemetry instrumentation techniques and the innovative use cases it unlocks.

In this live demo and Q&A, Grafana Labs experts will show how to add custom spans, metrics, and attributes that capture the application and business context zero-code instrumentation cannot always see. You’ll learn how to apply OpenTelemetry semantic conventions, send OTLP telemetry to Grafana Cloud, and use Grafana Cloud Application Observability and Grafana dashboards to turn that data into actionable insights.

You’ll also see how richer OpenTelemetry context can support AI-assisted investigations in Grafana, helping teams correlate signals, identify likely root causes, and understand business impact.

What you’ll learn

1. Learn when to use zero-code instrumentation and when code-based instrumentation can provide deeper context.
2. See how application telemetry can reveal performance patterns and quantify business impact.
3. Visualize and analyze OpenTelemetry data with Grafana and Grafana Cloud Application Observability.
4. Learn how custom telemetry and semantic context can improve AI-assisted investigations with Grafana Assistant.

Socials

• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/harrabab-singh_grafana-opentelemetry-observability-share-7487545837905158144-YeCn/?

First time preparing the Grafana OpenTelemetry Community Calls and co-hosting, with the checklist available here.

Recording

RSVP: https://www.meetup.com/grafana-friends-virtual-meetup-group/events/315282232

We’re back with the new Grafana ❤️‍🔥OpenTelemetry Community Call!

OpenTelemetry has officially graduated from the CNCF! In this episode of the Grafana OTel Community Call, we are celebrating this milestone by looking back at the project’s journey, evaluating the current state of its signals, and discussing what this long-term stability means for the future. We will also explore what lies ahead on the project roadmap and where the community needs contributors next.

Guests:

• Marylia Gutierrez
• Ted Young
• Tiffany Hrabusa

Hosts:

• Nicole van der Hoeven
• Tiffany Jernigan
• Imma Valls

This event will be livestreamed on YouTube and published on the same link after the fact: https://www.youtube.com/live/P9CfVEGwcgo

Join the conversation, bring your questions, and if it sparks something for you, jump in and help us build and improve OpenTelemetry together.

Social:

• https://www.linkedin.com/posts/imma-valls_opentelemetry-cncf-observability-activity-7473713941228212224-rg4-