Frequently Asked Questions on EDOT Node.js

How to disable the SDK?

Set the OTEL_SDK_DISABLED environment variable to true, and restart your application.

How to disable an instrumentation?

Set the OTEL_NODE_DISABLED_INSTRUMENTATIONS environment variable.

For example, to disable @opentelemetry/instrumentation-net and @opentelemetry/instrumentation-dns:

export OTEL_NODE_DISABLED_INSTRUMENTATIONS=dns,net
...
node --import @elastic/opentelemetry-node my-app.js

How to tell if EDOT Node.js is running?

Look for “start Elastic Distribution of OpenTelemetry Node.js” in the application log.

As it is starting, EDOT Node.js always logs (at the “info” level) a preamble to indicate that it has started. For example, it looks like this:

{"name":"elastic-otel-node","level":30,"preamble":true,"distroVersion":"0.7.0","env":{"os":"darwin 24.3.0","arch":"arm64","runtime":"Node.js v18.20.4"},"msg":"start Elastic Distribution of OpenTelemetry Node.js","time":"2025-03-27T22:14:08.288Z"}
...

The distroVersion field also indicates which version of EDOT Node.js is being used.