Metrics

Initialize the Meter Provider once, matching the application lifecycle; it is a factory for Meters and includes Resource and Exporter initialization. Meters create metric instruments capturing measurements at runtime, and each metric event consists of the measurement, the time it was captured, and associated metadata. An instrument is defined by Name, Kind, and optional Unit and Description. Use a Counter for values that only ever go up, a Gauge for a current value at the time it is read, or Asynchronous variants collected once for each export when you lack continuous access. Metric Exporters send data to standard output, the Collector, or a vendor backend. Collected data can alert of an outage or trigger scaling up a deployment upon high demand. Scope: OpenTelemetry. Reviewed October 4, 2026.