Flutterrific OpenTelemetry SDK for Flutter

Flutterrific OTel is an OpenTelemetry SDK for Flutter applications built on the Dartastic OpenTelemetry SDK, providing comprehensive observability for Flutter applications across all platforms.

Demo

The Wondrous OpenTelemetry project instruments the Wondrous App for observability with Flutterrific OTel. The main.dart and router.dart show how to set up your app with Flutterrific OpenTelemetry.

Overview

This Flutter SDK implements the OpenTelemetry specification, enabling developers to collect distributed traces and metrics from Flutter applications (logs coming soon). OpenTelemetry is a vendor-neutral standard for observability and is the second most active Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) project, after Kubernetes.

Why OpenTelemetry for Flutter?

• Report Errors: Get notified of errors in real time.
• Watch Your Users: Where do users spend their time? Increase conversion rates.
• Get Metrics: How fast do your routes load IRL?
• Future-Proof: OpenTelemetry is an industry standard with broad ecosystem support
• Vendor Neutral: Works with any OpenTelemetry-compatible backend
• Comprehensive: Covers traces, metrics, and logs in a unified approach
• Cross-Platform: Supports all Flutter platforms (Android, iOS, Web, Desktop)
• Performance: Designed for minimal overhead in production applications

Features

• 🚀 Simple Integration: Get started with just a few lines of code
• 👣 Automatic Instrumentation: Navigation, app lifecycle, and user interaction tracking
• 📊 Performance Metrics: Web vitals, APDEX scores, and custom performance metrics
• 🧩 Widget Extensions: Easy-to-use extensions for widget-level observability
• 🐞 Error Tracking: Comprehensive error handling and reporting
• 📐 Standards Compliant: Full adherence to OpenTelemetry specification
• 🌐 Multi-Platform: Supports Android, iOS, Web, and Desktop platforms
• 💪 Context Propagation: Seamless trace correlation across async boundaries
• 🔧 Configurable Sampling: Multiple sampling strategies for cost optimization
• 🧷 Type-Safe Semantics: Strongly-typed semantic conventions

Quick Start

1. Add Dependency

dependencies:
  flutterrific_opentelemetry: ^0.3.0

2. Initialize OpenTelemetry

import 'package:flutter/material.dart';
import 'package:flutterrific_opentelemetry/flutterrific_otel.dart';

void main() {
  // Initialize error handling
  FlutterError.onError = (FlutterErrorDetails details) {
    FlutterOTel.reportError('FlutterError.onError', details.exception, details.stack);
  };

  runZonedGuarded(() {
    // Initialize OpenTelemetry
    FlutterOTel.initialize(
      serviceName: 'my-flutter-app',
      serviceVersion: '1.0.0',
      tracerName: 'main',
      // Configure your exporter endpoint
      resourceAttributes: {
        'deployment.environment': 'production',
        'service.namespace': 'mobile-apps',
      }
    );
    
    runApp(MyApp());
  }, (error, stack) {
    FlutterOTel.reportError('Zone Error', error, stack);
  });
}

3. Automatic Instrumentation

The SDK automatically instruments:

• Navigation: Track route changes and user flows
• App Lifecycle: Monitor foreground/background transitions
• Performance: Collect frame rates and rendering metrics
• Errors: Capture and report exceptions with context

Platform Support

Platform	Support Level	Protocol	Notes
Android	Full	OTLP/gRPC	Complete feature support
iOS	Full	OTLP/gRPC	Complete feature support
Web	Full	OTLP/HTTP	Auto-switches due to browser limitations
Windows	Beta	OTLP/gRPC	Desktop support
macOS	Beta	OTLP/gRPC	Desktop support
Linux	Beta	OTLP/gRPC	Desktop support

Advanced Usage

Custom Tracing

void fetchUserData() async {
  final tracer = FlutterOTel.tracer;
  
  final span = tracer.startSpan('fetch_user_data', attributes: {
    'user.id': userId,
    'api.endpoint': '/users',
  });
  
  try {
    final result = await apiClient.getUser(userId);
    span.setStatus(SpanStatusCode.Ok);
    return result;
  } catch (e, stackTrace) {
    span.recordException(e, stackTrace: stackTrace);
    span.setStatus(SpanStatusCode.Error, e.toString());
    rethrow;
  } finally {
    span.end();
  }
}

Widget-Level Tracking

// Track button interactions
ElevatedButton(
  onPressed: handleSubmit,
  child: Text('Submit'),
).withOTelButtonTracking('submit_form');

// Monitor widget performance
ComplexWidget().withOTelPerformanceTracking('complex_widget');

// Error boundaries
RiskyWidget().withOTelErrorBoundary('risky_operation');

Configuration

Environment Variables

Standard OpenTelemetry environment variables are supported:

# Exporter endpoint
--dart-define=OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=https://your-collector:4317

# Protocol selection (grpc or http/protobuf)
--dart-define=OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL=grpc

# Service information
--dart-define=OTEL_SERVICE_NAME=my-flutter-app
--dart-define=OTEL_SERVICE_VERSION=1.0.0

Local Development

For local development, run an OpenTelemetry collector on localhost:4317, the default.

docker run -p 4317:4317 -p 4318:4318 --rm -ti grafana/otel-lgtm

Documentation

• Getting Started Guide
• API Reference
• Migration Guide
• Best Practices

Examples

• Basic Integration Example
• Wonderous OpenTelemetry - Complete app example

Contributing

We welcome contributions! Please see our Contributing Guide for details.

Development Setup

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/MindfulSoftwareLLC/flutterrific_opentelemetry.git
cd flutterrific_opentelemetry

# Install dependencies
make install

# Run tests
make test

# Run all checks
make all

Governance

This project follows the CNCF Code of Conduct and maintains open governance. We welcome community participation and contributions.

Security

Security vulnerabilities should be reported privately to the maintainers. See our Security Policy for details.

Compatibility

• Flutter: 3.7.0+
• Dart: 3.7.0+
• OpenTelemetry Specification: 1.31.0
• Platforms: Android, iOS, Web, Windows, macOS, Linux

Roadmap

See our Roadmap for planned features and improvements.

License

This project is licensed under the Apache License 2.0 - see the LICENSE file for details.

Community

• GitHub Issues - Bug reports and feature requests
• GitHub Discussions - Community discussions
• OpenTelemetry Community - Broader OpenTelemetry community

Acknowledgments

Built on the foundation of:

• Dartastic OpenTelemetry SDK
• OpenTelemetry Specification
• Flutter Framework

Maintained by Michael Bushe and Mindful Software LLC.

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This project aims to be contributed to the OpenTelemetry organization under the Cloud Native Computing Foundation.