congiuluc/aspire-otel

.NET Aspire & OpenTelemetry — Local Development Monitoring

When to Use

• Adding .NET Aspire orchestration to an existing or new solution
• Setting up the Aspire Dashboard for local development monitoring
• Instrumenting .NET services with OpenTelemetry (traces, metrics, logs)
• Configuring OTLP exporters for telemetry collection
• Running Aspire Dashboard standalone via Docker
• Troubleshooting missing telemetry or dashboard connectivity

Official Documentation

• .NET Aspire Overview
• .NET Aspire Dashboard
• Aspire Service Defaults
• OpenTelemetry .NET
• OpenTelemetry in .NET Aspire
• Aspire Dashboard Standalone Mode

Procedure

1. Load Aspire scaffolding reference
2. Load OpenTelemetry instrumentation reference
3. Load Dashboard configuration reference
4. Review sample AppHost and sample ServiceDefaults
5. Determine scope: Aspire orchestration, standalone dashboard, or manual OTel
6. Implement based on decision flow below
7. Verify telemetry appears in dashboard (traces, metrics, logs)

Decision Flow

User request
  ├─ "Add Aspire to my solution"
  │    → Phase 1: Scaffold AppHost + ServiceDefaults
  │    → Phase 2: Configure dashboard (auto with AppHost)
  │    → Phase 3: Wire up OpenTelemetry via ServiceDefaults
  │
  ├─ "Run Aspire Dashboard standalone"
  │    → Phase 2: Docker standalone dashboard
  │    → Phase 3: Manual OpenTelemetry setup (no Aspire SDK)
  │
  ├─ "Add OpenTelemetry only"
  │    → Phase 3: Manual OTel instrumentation
  │
  └─ "Full local observability"
       → Phase 1 + 2 + 3 + health checks

Completion Checklist

• [ ] AppHost project created and references all service projects (if using Aspire)
• [ ] ServiceDefaults project created (if using Aspire)
• [ ] All services call builder.AddServiceDefaults() and app.MapDefaultEndpoints()
• [ ] Dashboard accessible at https://localhost:18888
• [ ] Traces, metrics, and logs visible in dashboard
• [ ] Health check endpoints registered (/health, /alive)
• [ ] dotnet build succeeds for the entire solution