backwork (Elixir)

One-call OpenTelemetry tracing for backwork.dev. Wraps the opentelemetry_* exporter config and instrumentation setup so you don't hand-wire raw OTel.

Logs and host/container metrics come from the backwork agent (curl … install.sh). This package is only for distributed traces / APM from inside your app.

Install

In mix.exs, add :backwork plus the instrumentation libs your app uses:

def deps do
  [
    {:backwork, "~> 0.1"},
    {:opentelemetry_phoenix, "~> 2.0"},  # if Phoenix
    {:opentelemetry_bandit, "~> 0.2"},   # or :opentelemetry_cowboy
    {:opentelemetry_ecto, "~> 1.2"}      # if Ecto
  ]
end

Use

1. Create a Project in backwork and copy its ingest token; set BACKWORK_TOKEN.
2. Configure the exporter in config/runtime.exs:

config :opentelemetry, traces_exporter: :otlp
config :opentelemetry_exporter, Backwork.exporter_config()

1. Attach instrumentation in application.ex, before your supervisor children:

def start(_type, _args) do
  Backwork.setup(phoenix_adapter: :bandit, ecto: [[:my_app, :repo]])
  children = [...]
  Supervisor.start_link(children, strategy: :one_for_one, name: MyApp.Supervisor)
end

Name the service with OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES=service.name=my-app.

Config

Within ~30s of the first request your service appears under Traces, Requests and Metrics → Application performance.