Use when a user wants to wire an OpenTelemetry collector into a Managed ClickStack service on ClickHouse Cloud, either by deploying a new local collector (Docker run or Docker Compose) or by configuring their own existing collector, then send rich synthetic telemetry and verify it is visible in ClickStack.
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Use when a user wants to wire an OpenTelemetry collector into a Managed ClickStack service on ClickHouse Cloud, either by deploying a new local collector (Docker run or Docker Compose) or by configuring their own existing collector, then send rich synthetic telemetry and verify it is visible in ClickStack.
This skill wires an OpenTelemetry collector into a Managed ClickStack service running on ClickHouse Cloud, sends rich synthetic telemetry through it, and confirms the data is actually visible in ClickStack. It uses for all cloud and SQL operations.
Version history
Scope. This skill supports two paths, chosen in Step 0:
docker commands,
or a docker compose file (recommended, fewer commands and one file to start/stop). Make the
user aware of both up front and let them pick in Step 0; do not assume plain docker. Either
way runs the ClickStack distribution of the collector, preconfigured for Managed ClickStack.A full Kubernetes deployment (Helm, secrets in K8s Secrets) is out of scope here; the config we generate in path 2 can be applied to a collector running anywhere.
The end state is:
hyperdx_ingest SQL user on the target service, with exactly the grants the
collector needs (it creates the otel.* schema on first write).otel database on the service,
either the new local ClickStack collector or your existing one.Secrets (the OTLP auth token and the SQL password) are generated locally, written once to a
0600 env file, and passed to Docker via --env-file. They are never pasted into the chat,
never passed with docker run -e, and never echoed back after creation.
Follow these steps in order. Each step depends on state established by the previous one.
Ask the user two short questions before doing anything else, because they determine which later steps run.
Question 1: Do you already have an OpenTelemetry collector running in a gateway role?
Question 2 (new-collector path only): Run the collector with individual Docker commands, or a Docker Compose file?
docker compose is available.Record the answers as COLLECTOR_PATH (new or existing) and, for the new path,
DEPLOY_MODE (compose or run). Refer back to them in Step 6 and Step 7.
Coding agents prompt for approval the first time they see each shell command. To avoid interrupting the user every few steps, ask them once, up front, to allowlist the command prefixes below (the "always allow for this project / session" option in their agent). There are no destructive operations and nothing targets anything outside this project or their ClickHouse Cloud service.
| Command prefix | Used for | Needed when |
|---|---|---|
openssl rand … | generate the OTLP token and SQL password | always |
clickhousectl cloud … | auth, resolve the service, run SQL via the Query API | always |
jq … | parse JSON from clickhousectl | always |
docker … / docker compose … | run/inspect the collector and the telemetry generator | new-collector path, and the optional telemetry check |
curl … | local health check against localhost:13133 (and installing clickhousectl if missing) | new-collector path |
Tell the user, in your own words: "If your agent supports it, choose 'always allow' for each
of these the first time it asks. The whole run is read-only against your machine except for the
collector container, and write operations against ClickHouse are limited to creating the ingest
user and the otel schema."
If the user is on the existing-collector path and does not want to run the optional telemetry
check, you can drop docker and curl from the list.
Two approvals are semantic, not prefix-based, so allowlisting won't pre-clear them. Warn the user to expect these and approve them explicitly when they appear:
clickhousectl install in Step 3 uses curl … | sh, which many agent sandboxes flag as
"downloading and running untrusted code" regardless of any curl allowlist rule.CREATE USER / GRANT in Step 5 may be flagged as "modifying shared production
infrastructure," again independent of the clickhousectl prefix rule.Neither is solved by the table above; they are one-time, intentional, and safe to approve.
Then continue.
The user's prompt contains a service identifier, either a service ID (UUID) or a service name.
Treat that value as SERVICE_REF.
Create a working directory and a 0600 env file that will hold all configuration and
secrets for this run. The key names match exactly what the collector image reads, so this same
file is passed straight to docker run --env-file (or referenced by Compose) in Step 6. Write
it under a tight umask so the secret is never briefly world-readable:
WORKDIR="${WORKDIR:-$HOME/clickstack-otel-collector}"
mkdir -p "$WORKDIR" && chmod 700 "$WORKDIR"
ENV_FILE="$WORKDIR/collector.env"
# Generate secrets WITHOUT printing them; write straight into a private file.
( umask 177
{
echo "SERVICE_REF=$SERVICE_REF"
echo "OTLP_AUTH_TOKEN=$(openssl rand -hex 32)"
echo "CLICKHOUSE_USER=hyperdx_ingest"
echo "CLICKHOUSE_PASSWORD=$(openssl rand -hex 24)Aa1-"
echo "HYPERDX_OTEL_EXPORTER_CLICKHOUSE_DATABASE=otel"
} > "$ENV_FILE"
)
chmod 600 "$ENV_FILE"
ls -l "$ENV_FILE"
Two things about these values matter and are easy to get wrong:
CLICKHOUSE_USER, CLICKHOUSE_PASSWORD,
CLICKHOUSE_ENDPOINT, and HYPERDX_OTEL_EXPORTER_CLICKHOUSE_DATABASE. Store the SQL password
under CLICKHOUSE_PASSWORD (not a custom name); if it is missing, the collector starts with an
empty password and dies with code: 516, Authentication failed.CREATE USER. At the same time, the collector's migration tool embeds the
password in a connection URL, so @, :, /, ?, #, and % corrupt it (symptom:
code: 516 at startup even though the password is "correct"). The recipe above is random hex
(lowercase + digits) plus the suffix Aa1-, which adds the required uppercase, a digit, and a
URL-unreserved special character (-). The OTLP token has no such rules (it is just a
bearer token), so plain hex is fine for it.The env file uses bare KEY=VALUE lines with no quotes: Docker's --env-file does not do
shell parsing, so any quotes you add become part of the value.
On the existing-collector path the OTLP_AUTH_TOKEN is not used by your collector (auth on
your receiver is your own setup); it is generated only so the same file works if you later switch
to the local collector. The CLICKHOUSE_* values are still used: they go into the exporter
config you add to your collector in Step 6.
Every later step runs in a fresh shell, so WORKDIR, ENV_FILE, and any exported credentials do
not persist, and WORKDIR/ENV_FILE are not stored inside the env file, so sourcing it can't
recover them. Begin each subsequent step's shell with this standard preamble, which
re-derives the paths from the deterministic default, loads the saved credentials (Step 3), and
loads the config:
WORKDIR="${WORKDIR:-$HOME/clickstack-otel-collector}"; ENV_FILE="$WORKDIR/collector.env"
[ -f "$WORKDIR/creds.env" ] && . "$WORKDIR/creds.env"; set -a; . "$ENV_FILE"; set +a
If you chose a non-default WORKDIR, set it explicitly at the top of every step (the ${WORKDIR:-…}
default only covers the standard location). Later steps refer to this as "the standard preamble".
Confirm with the user that SERVICE_REF is correct. Tell them the working directory and that
collector.env (mode 0600) now holds the OTLP token and the SQL password. Do not print
either secret. If they want to see a value, point them at the file
(grep OTLP_AUTH_TOKEN "$ENV_FILE").
If the user supplied their own token or password, write those into the file instead of the
generated ones, but keep the same 0600 discipline and make sure any custom password still meets
the charset rules above.
clickhousectl (separate terminal by default)Check clickhousectl is on PATH. Run this presence check on its own, not chained to the
installer: the || curl … | sh form drags a harmless check into a compound command that sandboxes
deny wholesale as an untrusted-code download.
which clickhousectl
Only if that prints nothing, install it (the user may need to approve this explicitly, see Step 1):
curl -fsSL https://clickhouse.com/cli | sh
Check authentication:
clickhousectl cloud auth status
This skill needs API key authentication: OAuth is read-only and cannot create users or run
write queries. If the API key row is not Active, the user must authenticate.
Do not ask the user to paste their API key and secret into the chat. Anything pasted into the conversation lives in the transcript and has to be rotated afterward. Instead, ask them to authenticate in a separate terminal, then tell you when they are done:
I need a ClickHouse Cloud Admin API key to create the ingest user and verify the data. Please don't paste it here. Instead:
In the Cloud console, open Organization → API keys → New API key, and give it the Admin role. (Developer-scoped keys can't provision the per-service Query API endpoint that
cloud service queryuses.)In a separate terminal, run:
clickhousectl cloud auth login --api-key <key-id> --api-secret <key-secret>Tell me when that's done and I'll re-check the auth status.
Poll until the API key row reports Active, then confirm with a real privileged call rather than
trusting the status table alone. Use a ref-agnostic call here: SERVICE_REF may be a name, and
cloud service get only accepts a UUID, so confirming with get would fail on a name for reasons
unrelated to auth. cloud service list needs no ref and proves the API key works:
clickhousectl cloud auth status
clickhousectl cloud service list --json | jq -r '.[].name'
If the list returns your services, you are authenticated; continue. The actual name-or-UUID
resolution of SERVICE_REF happens in Step 4.
Expect to need the env-var credentials (common, not an edge case). Many clickhousectl builds
save the credentials file but a freshly spawned shell (such as the one your tool calls run in)
doesn't read it, so auth status shows Active yet the very next clickhousectl call reports
No credentials found. Rather than treat this as a rare fallback, write a small sourceable
creds file once, then load it in every later shell. This keeps each subsequent shell to a single
. line instead of two jq re-derivations, and keeps the secret out of the chat:
# Write a private, sourceable creds file next to collector.env.
( umask 177
{ echo "export CLICKHOUSE_CLOUD_API_KEY=$(jq -r .api_key "$HOME/.clickhouse/credentials.json")"
echo "export CLICKHOUSE_CLOUD_API_SECRET=$(jq -r .api_secret "$HOME/.clickhouse/credentials.json")"
} > "$WORKDIR/creds.env"
)
chmod 600 "$WORKDIR/creds.env"
From now on, open every shell that calls clickhousectl with both loads, because env vars do
not persist across shells:
. "$WORKDIR/creds.env"; set -a; . "$ENV_FILE"; set +a
Re-run the service list check above with the creds loaded; it should now succeed. Do not continue
until a real call works. (If clickhousectl auth status already shows API key … Active and calls
succeed without creds.env, you can skip this; but most agent shells need it.)
Run the standard preamble (Step 2) so the paths, credentials, and config are all loaded in this
shell, then resolve the service. If SERVICE_REF is a UUID, use it directly; otherwise look it up
by name:
WORKDIR="${WORKDIR:-$HOME/clickstack-otel-collector}"; ENV_FILE="$WORKDIR/collector.env"
[ -f "$WORKDIR/creds.env" ] && . "$WORKDIR/creds.env"; set -a; . "$ENV_FILE"; set +a
# UUID form
clickhousectl cloud service get "$SERVICE_REF" --json > "$WORKDIR/svc.json"
# Name form (note the double quotes: service names can contain spaces or apostrophes,
# e.g. "Alex's test")
clickhousectl cloud service list --json \
| jq --arg n "$SERVICE_REF" '.[] | select(.name==$n)' > "$WORKDIR/svc.json"
Extract the values you need, coercing the port to an integer. The port serializes as a float
(8443.0); if :8443.0 leaks into the endpoint the collector's ClickHouse exporter cannot dial
it:
SERVICE_ID=$(jq -r '.id' "$WORKDIR/svc.json")
SERVICE_NAME=$(jq -r '.name' "$WORKDIR/svc.json")
STATE=$(jq -r '.state' "$WORKDIR/svc.json")
CLICKHOUSE_ENDPOINT=$(jq -r '.endpoints[] | select(.protocol=="https")
| "https://\(.host):\(.port | tonumber | floor)"' "$WORKDIR/svc.json")
# Persist the resolved values back into the env file for later steps and docker --env-file.
# Append only if the key is not already present, so a second run does not duplicate lines.
grep -q '^SERVICE_ID=' "$ENV_FILE" || echo "SERVICE_ID=$SERVICE_ID" >> "$ENV_FILE"
grep -q '^CLICKHOUSE_ENDPOINT=' "$ENV_FILE" || echo "CLICKHOUSE_ENDPOINT=$CLICKHOUSE_ENDPOINT" >> "$ENV_FILE"
printf 'service=%q state=%s endpoint=%s\n' "$SERVICE_NAME" "$STATE" "$CLICKHOUSE_ENDPOINT"
STATE must be running. If it is stopped or starting, ask the user to start the service (or
wait), and do not proceed. ClickHouse Cloud services idle-suspend, so even a "running" service
can be asleep; the next query both checks reachability and wakes it:
clickhousectl cloud service query --id "$SERVICE_ID" --query "SELECT version()"
A successful response confirms the service is awake and that the per-service Query API key is
provisioned. On the first call clickhousectl prints Provisioning Query API endpoint + key for service '<name>'..., which is expected.
hyperdx_ingest SQL user and grant it otel.*This step is the same on both paths: the collector (new or existing) authenticates to ClickHouse
as hyperdx_ingest. Open the shell with the combined load so $CLICKHOUSE_PASSWORD (and
credentials) are set.
Expect an approval prompt here. The
CREATE USER/GRANTstatements below are DDL against a Cloud service, so some agent sandboxes flag them as "modifying shared production infrastructure" even whenclickhousectlis allowlisted. This is expected; the operations are scoped to a single dedicated ingest user and theotelschema, and the user should approve them explicitly when prompted.
Never put the plaintext password in the SQL. Hash it locally and use sha256_hash. Two
problems rule out IDENTIFIED WITH sha256_password BY '$CLICKHOUSE_PASSWORD': the secret would
land in the process arg list (visible in ps) and shell history, and, critically, the Query API
echoes the failing statement verbatim in its error JSON, so any error (a transient failure, a
charset slip) leaks the password into output an agent may surface. Passing it over stdin does not
help, the error echo still contains it. Instead compute the SHA-256 hash of the password locally
(sha256_hash stores exactly what sha256_password would, so the collector still logs in with the
plaintext from the env file) and put only the hash in the statement. A hash is non-reversible,
so even an echoed error cannot leak the password:
WORKDIR="${WORKDIR:-$HOME/clickstack-otel-collector}"; ENV_FILE="$WORKDIR/collector.env"
[ -f "$WORKDIR/creds.env" ] && . "$WORKDIR/creds.env"; set -a; . "$ENV_FILE"; set +a
# SHA-256 of the password. openssl is already a dependency; this is portable (macOS + Linux).
# Only this hash ever reaches SQL, output, or `ps`; the plaintext stays in the env file.
PW_HASH=$(printf %s "$CLICKHOUSE_PASSWORD" | openssl dgst -sha256 | awk '{print $NF}')
# Send statements ONE AT A TIME: the Query API runs over HTTP and rejects multi-statement input
# ("Multi-statements are not allowed"), so a single ; -separated batch fails.
clickhousectl cloud service query --id "$SERVICE_ID" --query \
"CREATE USER IF NOT EXISTS hyperdx_ingest IDENTIFIED WITH sha256_hash BY '$PW_HASH'"
# Re-run safe: force the password to this run's value if the user already existed.
clickhousectl cloud service query --id "$SERVICE_ID" --query \
"ALTER USER hyperdx_ingest IDENTIFIED WITH sha256_hash BY '$PW_HASH'"
Grant the least privilege the collector needs to create and write the otel.* schema. On the
current image the schema migrations and their version table also live in otel, so otel.* is
sufficient (this statement carries no secret):
clickhousectl cloud service query --id "$SERVICE_ID" --query \
"GRANT SELECT, INSERT, CREATE DATABASE, CREATE TABLE, CREATE VIEW ON otel.* TO hyperdx_ingest"
Older image builds: some earlier collector versions ran their goose migrations against a version table in the
defaultdatabase, so startup looped onACCESS_DENIEDuntildefault.*was also granted. If you seeACCESS_DENIEDreferencingdefaultin the collector logs (Step 6), add this and restart the container:clickhousectl cloud service query --id "$SERVICE_ID" --query \ "GRANT SELECT, INSERT, CREATE TABLE ON default.* TO hyperdx_ingest"
Verify:
clickhousectl cloud service query --id "$SERVICE_ID" --query "SHOW GRANTS FOR hyperdx_ingest"
You should see GRANT SELECT, INSERT, CREATE DATABASE, CREATE TABLE, CREATE VIEW ON otel.* TO hyperdx_ingest.
Follow the sub-section that matches the path and mode you chose in Step 0. All three converge on
the same end state: a collector accepting OTLP and writing into the otel database on the service.
Every code block in this step assumes you have run the standard preamble (Step 2) first, so
$WORKDIR, $ENV_FILE, $SERVICE_ID, and the secrets are set in the shell.
Make sure Docker is running (new-collector path only):
WORKDIR="${WORKDIR:-$HOME/clickstack-otel-collector}"; ENV_FILE="$WORKDIR/collector.env"
[ -f "$WORKDIR/creds.env" ] && . "$WORKDIR/creds.env"; set -a; . "$ENV_FILE"; set +a
docker info > /dev/null
DEPLOY_MODE=compose)Write a Compose file in the working directory. It reads the same collector.env for secrets,
publishes the OTLP and health ports, and pins a named network so the telemetry generator in Step 7
can reach the collector by container name:
cat > "$WORKDIR/docker-compose.yaml" <<'EOF'
name: clickstack
services:
otel-collector:
image: clickhouse/clickstack-otel-collector:latest
container_name: clickstack-otel-collector
env_file: ./collector.env
ports:
- "4317:4317" # OTLP gRPC
- "4318:4318" # OTLP HTTP
- "13133:13133" # health
restart: unless-stopped
networks: [clickstack-net]
networks:
clickstack-net:
name: clickstack-net
EOF
# Compose refuses to adopt a clickstack-net it did not create (a leftover from the docker run
# path, a prior failed Compose run, or a DEPLOY_MODE switch), failing with "network clickstack-net
# was found but has incorrect label". If an orphan exists with no containers attached, remove it so
# Compose can recreate it with its own labels.
if docker network inspect clickstack-net >/dev/null 2>&1 \
&& [ -z "$(docker network inspect clickstack-net -f '{{range .Containers}}{{.Name}} {{end}}')" ]; then
docker network rm clickstack-net
fi
( cd "$WORKDIR" && docker compose up -d )
Compose creates the clickstack-net network for you (the guard above clears an orphaned one from a
prior run first). Skip to Step 6d to confirm health.
DEPLOY_MODE=run)Create a user-defined network so the telemetry generator in Step 7 can reach the collector by container name:
docker network create clickstack-net 2>/dev/null || true
Start the collector, passing all secrets via --env-file (never -e, which would put the
secret on the command line, in shell history, and in ps). The docker rm -f first makes the step
safe to re-run:
docker rm -f clickstack-otel-collector 2>/dev/null || true
docker run -d \
--name clickstack-otel-collector \
--network clickstack-net \
--env-file "$ENV_FILE" \
-p 4317:4317 \
-p 4318:4318 \
-p 13133:13133 \
clickhouse/clickstack-otel-collector:latest
The image reads OTLP_AUTH_TOKEN, CLICKHOUSE_ENDPOINT, CLICKHOUSE_USER, CLICKHOUSE_PASSWORD,
and HYPERDX_OTEL_EXPORTER_CLICKHOUSE_DATABASE from the env file. It enables bearer-token auth on
the OTLP receiver with an empty scheme, so callers send the raw token as the authorization header
(no Bearer prefix). Continue to Step 6d.
COLLECTOR_PATH=existing)Add the ClickHouse exporter to your existing collector configuration. The config below matches the
behavior of the ClickStack distribution, including the Session Replay (rrweb) routing path, and
writes into the otel database the ClickStack UI expects.
Reference the endpoint and password as environment variables (${env:…}), do not hardcode them
into the config file. The contrib collector expands ${env:VAR} at load time, so keeping the
plaintext password out of the config file is both safer and consistent with the rest of this skill.
Start your collector with the env vars available, the simplest way is the same --env-file the
local collector uses:
# When running the contrib collector in Docker, pass collector.env so ${env:CLICKHOUSE_*} resolve:
# docker run -d --env-file "$ENV_FILE" -p 4317:4317 -p 4318:4318 \
# -v "$WORKDIR/your-config.yaml:/etc/otelcol-contrib/config.yaml:ro" \
# otel/opentelemetry-collector-contrib:latest
# For a non-Docker collector, export CLICKHOUSE_ENDPOINT and CLICKHOUSE_PASSWORD into its
# environment (e.g. an EnvironmentFile= in the systemd unit) before it starts.
Add this to your collector config and reload it:
receivers:
otlp/hyperdx:
protocols:
grpc:
include_metadata: true
endpoint: "0.0.0.0:4317"
http:
cors:
allowed_origins: ["*"]
allowed_headers: ["*"]
include_metadata: true
endpoint: "0.0.0.0:4318"
processors:
batch:
memory_limiter:
limit_mib: 1500
spike_limit_mib: 512
check_interval: 5s
connectors:
routing/logs:
default_pipelines: [logs/out-default]
error_mode: ignore
table:
- context: log
statement: route() where IsMatch(attributes["rr-web.event"], ".*")
pipelines: [logs/out-rrweb]
exporters:
clickhouse:
database: otel
endpoint: ${env:CLICKHOUSE_ENDPOINT}
username: hyperdx_ingest
password: ${env:CLICKHOUSE_PASSWORD}
ttl: 720h
timeout: 5s
retry_on_failure:
enabled: true
initial_interval: 5s
max_interval: 30s
max_elapsed_time: 300s
clickhouse/rrweb:
database: otel
endpoint: ${env:CLICKHOUSE_ENDPOINT}
username: hyperdx_ingest
password: ${env:CLICKHOUSE_PASSWORD}
ttl: 720h
logs_table_name: hyperdx_sessions
timeout: 5s
retry_on_failure:
enabled: true
initial_interval: 5s
max_interval: 30s
max_elapsed_time: 300s
service:
pipelines:
traces:
receivers: [otlp/hyperdx]
processors: [memory_limiter, batch]
exporters: [clickhouse]
metrics:
receivers: [otlp/hyperdx]
processors: [memory_limiter, batch]
exporters: [clickhouse]
logs/in:
receivers: [otlp/hyperdx]
exporters: [routing/logs]
logs/out-default:
receivers: [routing/logs]
processors: [memory_limiter, batch]
exporters: [clickhouse]
logs/out-rrweb:
receivers: [routing/logs]
processors: [memory_limiter, batch]
exporters: [clickhouse/rrweb]
Notes for this path:
OTLP_AUTH_TOKEN generated in
Step 2 is not used here unless you wire it into your own auth (for example bearertokenauth).docker ps --filter name=clickstack-otel-collector --format '{{.Status}}'
curl -fsS http://localhost:13133/ && echo
docker logs --tail 40 clickstack-otel-collector 2>&1 | tail -40
A healthy start shows the seed migrations running to completion ([seed] OK ... lines ending in
goose: up to current file version: N), then Everything is ready. Begin running and processing data. (or equivalent), docker ps reporting Up ... (healthy), and the health check returning
HTTP 200. A seed line like ClickHouse 25.12 < 26.2, falling back to compatibility logs and traces schemas on an older server version is expected and harmless, not an error; do not pause on it.
If instead the container exits, the cause is almost always in the seed step:
code: 516, Authentication failed: password is incorrect -> CLICKHOUSE_PASSWORD is empty or
wrong in the env file. The most common slip is storing the password under a different key name
(it must be CLICKHOUSE_PASSWORD), or using a password containing @ : / ? # %, which
corrupts the migration tool's connection URL.[HTTP 403] / data size should be 0 < <huge number> at "server hello" -> same root cause: an
empty/wrong password against the HTTPS endpoint.CLICKHOUSE_ENDPOINT is malformed (it must be https://<host>:8443, with
no .0 on the port).ACCESS_DENIED referencing default -> only on older image builds; apply the default.* grant
from the Step 5 note and restart.Use telemetrygen (the OpenTelemetry Collector Contrib generator) from its Docker image, so
nothing is installed on the host. Instead of one flat burst, send telemetry across several
services, severities, span statuses, and metric types, so ClickStack's Search,
Service Map, and dashboards have realistic, varied data rather than a single uniform stream.
Load the env file so the token is available, then reference $OTLP_AUTH_TOKEN. The tg helper
below redirects all generator output to a log file and prints only an exit code, because
telemetrygen echoes its full config, including the authorization header (your OTLP token),
to stdout. Never surface that raw output in the chat. telemetrygen's header syntax requires the
value to be a quoted string: key="value".
WORKDIR="${WORKDIR:-$HOME/clickstack-otel-collector}"; ENV_FILE="$WORKDIR/collector.env"
[ -f "$WORKDIR/creds.env" ] && . "$WORKDIR/creds.env"; set -a; . "$ENV_FILE"; set +a
TG_IMAGE=ghcr.io/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-contrib/telemetrygen:latest
NET=clickstack-net
ENDPOINT=clickstack-otel-collector:4317
TG_LOG="$WORKDIR/telemetrygen.log"; : > "$TG_LOG"
tg() {
# usage: tg <logs|traces|metrics> [extra telemetrygen flags...]
# Output (which contains the token in the echoed config) goes to $TG_LOG, never the terminal.
local signal="$1"; shift
docker run --rm --network "$NET" "$TG_IMAGE" "$signal" \
--otlp-endpoint "$ENDPOINT" \
--otlp-insecure \
--otlp-header "authorization=\"$OTLP_AUTH_TOKEN\"" \
--rate 10 --duration 15s "$@" >>"$TG_LOG" 2>&1
echo "$signal exit=$?"
}
Existing-collector path: set
NETandENDPOINTto reach your collector instead. If it runs on this host, use--network hoststyle access or pointENDPOINTat its published address, and set theauthorizationheader (or other auth) to whatever your receiver expects. Everything below is otherwise identical.
Judge success by exit code and row counts, never by the generator's logs. Two reasons. First,
the log contains your OTLP token (see above), so do not print it. Second, it is noisy and every run
ends with rpc error: code = Canceled desc = grpc: the client connection is closing once
--duration elapses, which is expected shutdown, not a failure. The tg helper already prints
<signal> exit=0 on success. If you must inspect a failure, grep the log for the real signal
without dumping it, for example grep -c Unauthenticated "$TG_LOG" (a non-zero count plus a
non-zero exit means the authorization header did not match). Confirm overall success with the row
counts in the verification queries below.
Quote attribute values so the inner double quotes survive the shell. telemetrygen requires
each attribute as key="value" (with literal double quotes), and rejects a bare key=value with
value should be a string wrapped in double quotes. If you write --otlp-attributes deployment.environment="production", bash strips the quotes and the container receives
deployment.environment=production, which hard-fails. Wrap the whole argument in single quotes
so the inner double quotes reach the container, exactly as the tg helper already does for the
auth header.
Logs across two services with different severities and bodies, including an error line:
tg logs --service checkout --severity-text Info --severity-number 9 \
--body "checkout completed" \
--otlp-attributes 'deployment.environment="production"' \
--telemetry-attributes 'http.method="POST"'
tg logs --service payment --severity-text Error --severity-number 17 \
--body "payment gateway timeout" \
--otlp-attributes 'deployment.environment="production"' \
--telemetry-attributes 'http.status_code="500"'
Traces with child spans, a healthy service and an erroring one (this is what populates the Service Map and the error views):
tg traces --service checkout --child-spans 4 --span-duration 120ms --status-code Ok \
--otlp-attributes 'deployment.environment="production"' \
--telemetry-attributes 'http.route="/cart"'
tg traces --service payment --child-spans 3 --span-duration 400ms --status-code Error \
--otlp-attributes 'deployment.environment="production"' \
--telemetry-attributes 'http.route="/charge"'
Metrics across the three common types, so dashboards have gauges, counters, and a distribution:
tg metrics --service checkout --metric-type Sum
tg metrics --service checkout --metric-type Gauge
tg metrics --service payment --metric-type Histogram
(--metric-type accepts Gauge, Sum, Histogram, or ExponentialHistogram. Add --otlp-http
with --otlp-endpoint clickstack-otel-collector:4318 to exercise the HTTP path instead of gRPC.)
Wait ~15 seconds for the collector to flush its batch, then confirm the tables exist:
clickhousectl cloud service query --id "$SERVICE_ID" --query \
"SELECT name FROM system.tables WHERE database='otel' ORDER BY name"
Then confirm rows are landing. Count by parts.rows, which is signal-agnostic and avoids
hard-coding per-signal column names:
clickhousectl cloud service query --id "$SERVICE_ID" --query \
"SELECT table, sum(rows) AS rows
FROM system.parts
WHERE database='otel' AND active
AND table IN ('otel_logs','otel_traces',
'otel_metrics_sum','otel_metrics_gauge',
'otel_metrics_histogram','otel_metrics_exponential_histogram',
'otel_metrics_summary')
GROUP BY table ORDER BY table"
You should see non-zero rows for otel_logs, otel_traces, otel_metrics_sum,
otel_metrics_gauge, and otel_metrics_histogram. If a signal is missing:
docker logs --tail 50 clickstack-otel-collector) for export errors.authorization header matches $OTLP_AUTH_TOKEN: grep -c Unauthenticated "$TG_LOG" (a non-zero count means a mismatch, the full message is code = Unauthenticated desc = provided authorization does not match expected scheme or token). Grep rather than print the
log, since it contains the token.CLICKHOUSE_ENDPOINT has the https:// scheme and :8443 port.Do not proceed until every expected signal has non-zero rows.
Rows in ClickHouse are not the same as the user seeing telemetry in ClickStack. The ClickStack UI requires a one-time onboarding step that auto-detects the data sources, and that step fails if the ClickHouse service has idle-suspended in the meantime.
First, confirm the service is awake. Do not skip this; it is the most common reason onboarding shows no sources. Run a real query and require it to succeed:
clickhousectl cloud service query --id "$SERVICE_ID" --query "SELECT 1"
If this returns 1, the service is awake; continue immediately to the console steps below while it
stays warm. If it errors or times out, the service was asleep and this call is waking it: wait a
few seconds and re-run until it returns 1. Only proceed once it succeeds.
Then walk the user through onboarding explicitly. Do not just say "done"; spell out each click, because the sources only appear after this flow is completed:
otel database are
picked up automatically, and your data appears in the Search and dashboard views.The direct link is https://console.clickhouse.cloud/services/<SERVICE_ID>/clickstack (substitute
$SERVICE_ID).
If source detection shows nothing, the service almost certainly idle-suspended between the data
send and the console step. Re-run the SELECT 1 wake query above for the user, then have them
re-run the detection, rather than leaving them to debug an opaque failure.
Print a summary in roughly this format. Note the token is referenced, not printed, the SQL password is not shown at all, and the collector keeps running until the user stops it. Adjust the "how to stop" line to the deploy mode they chose.
✅ ClickStack is set up and ingesting telemetry for service <SERVICE_NAME> (<SERVICE_ID>).
Complete onboarding in the console (Step 8) to auto-detect the sources and see your data.
Collector
▸ New local collector via <Docker Compose | docker run> (or: configured your existing collector)
▸ Send OTLP gRPC to: localhost:4317
▸ Send OTLP HTTP to: localhost:4318
▸ Health check: http://localhost:13133/ (local collector only)
▸ Required header: authorization: <OTLP token>
(retrieve with: grep OTLP_AUTH_TOKEN <WORKDIR>/collector.env)
ClickHouse target
▸ Endpoint: <CLICKHOUSE_ENDPOINT>
▸ SQL user: hyperdx_ingest (password in <WORKDIR>/collector.env, mode 0600)
▸ Database: otel
Finish in the ClickHouse Cloud console:
▸ Open the service, select ClickStack in the left menu, then Getting Started,
and complete onboarding to auto-detect sources.
▸ https://console.clickhouse.cloud/services/<SERVICE_ID>/clickstack
Then tell the user, in your own words, that:
<WORKDIR>/collector.env (mode 0600). Nothing sensitive was pasted into
this chat or passed on a docker run command line.cd <WORKDIR> && docker compose down stops it, docker compose up -d brings it back. For
individual Docker: docker stop clickstack-otel-collector and docker start clickstack-otel-collector.localhost:4317 (gRPC) or
localhost:4318 (HTTP) with the authorization header from the env file.# Docker Compose deployment:
( cd "$WORKDIR" && docker compose down )
# Individual Docker deployment:
docker rm -f clickstack-otel-collector
docker network rm clickstack-net 2>/dev/null || true
# Either deployment, remove the ingest user:
clickhousectl cloud service query --id "$SERVICE_ID" --query "DROP USER IF EXISTS hyperdx_ingest"
# Optionally remove the local files once they are no longer needed:
# rm -f "$WORKDIR/collector.env" "$WORKDIR/svc.json" "$WORKDIR/docker-compose.yaml"
Do not drop the otel database: it contains telemetry the user may want to retain.
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