How to observe your CI/CD pipelines with OpenTelemetry

The increasing complexity of modern software and the rapid evolution of development processes, particularly with the introduction of DevOps and CI/CD, have highlighted the need for improved observability of CI/CD pipelines to ensure efficient software delivery. Observability, defined as understanding a system from the outside by analyzing emitted data, is crucial for troubleshooting and maintaining healthy pipelines, which are essential for continuous integration and delivery of code into production. OpenTelemetry, an open-source framework, offers a standardized approach to collecting and exporting telemetry data, aiding in achieving pipeline observability without vendor lock-in. Despite its utility, the integration of OpenTelemetry into CI/CD tools is still in its nascent stages, and the tooling landscape remains fragmented, presenting challenges in standardizing observability practices across different platforms. Consequently, the development and maintenance of CI/CD observability tools rely heavily on community contributions, which poses potential risks if such tools become unsupported. Nevertheless, efforts continue to advance the observability capabilities of CI/CD pipelines, with companies like New Relic offering solutions for monitoring and analyzing pipeline data to enhance their performance and reliability.