Coding Agents — Onboarding

OpenLit ships first-class observability for AI coding agents. The openlit CLI ingests events from each vendor’s hook system, normalizes them onto OpenTelemetry’s gen_ai.* and OpenLit’s coding_agent.* semantic conventions, and ships them to your existing OpenLit collector. The /agents page detects them automatically — no controller, no SDK, no code change in your repos.

You only need an OpenLit instance and the openlit CLI on each developer’s machine. The CLI talks only to your OpenLit endpoint. There is no managed cloud for coding-agent telemetry.

Prerequisites

A running OpenLit instance — see Installation if you don’t have one.
An OpenLit API key (Settings → API Keys).
The OTLP endpoint of your OpenLit collector (defaults to http://localhost:4318 for local installs).

1. Install the CLI

Pick the path that matches your OS. All paths install the same openlit binary built by cli-release.yml.

brew install openlit/openlit/openlit

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/openlit/openlit/main/cli/scripts/install.sh | sh

iwr -useb https://raw.githubusercontent.com/openlit/openlit/main/cli/scripts/install.ps1 | iex

docker run --rm -it ghcr.io/openlit/openlit-cli:latest --help

The Linux and Windows scripts install to ~/.openlit/bin/openlit and %USERPROFILE%\.openlit\bin\openlit.exe respectively. The Linux script prints a PATH-add hint if the directory is not already on $PATH; the Windows script updates user-scope PATH automatically (open a new terminal to pick it up). If you prefer to build from source: go install github.com/openlit/openlit/cli/cmd/openlit@latest.

2. Configure once

The fastest path is openlit configure — it answers the same questions a CI / Helm chart would set via env. The result is written to ~/.config/openlit/config.env (Linux/macOS) or %APPDATA%\openlit\config.env (Windows). For headless / fleet rollouts, prefer env vars or flags directly — they take precedence over the file (flags > env > config file).

openlit configure \
  --endpoint https://openlit.example.com:4318 \
  --api-key  $OPENLIT_API_KEY

Equivalent environment variables (precedence: flags > env > config file):

Variable	Purpose
`OPENLIT_OTLP_ENDPOINT`	OTLP/HTTP endpoint of your collector
`OPENLIT_API_KEY`	Authenticates the OTLP exporter
`OPENLIT_USER`	Optional override for `gen_ai.user.name` (email or login)
`OPENLIT_CODING_CONTENT_CAPTURE`	`minimal` \| `metadata_only` \| `full` (default: `full`)

Standard OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_* variables are honoured as fallbacks so existing OTel users can reuse their setup.

OPENLIT_CODING_CONTENT_CAPTURE defaults to full so the trace detail view is useful on first use — prompt bodies, agent replies, and tool I/O are stamped onto every per-event span, scrubbed by the tier-1 secret redactor on the way out. Switch to metadata_only when rolling out across a team where prompts may carry confidential material (the trace-detail page will surface a note on every span explaining how). Use minimal if you only need cost + activity dashboards and not the per-event timeline.

3. Wire each vendor

openlit coding install writes the right hook config for the agent you pass and is fully idempotent. You can also point at the plugin marketplace and let the agent pull the manifest itself, or invoke the agent through openlit coding launch which auto-installs and execs.

Claude Code
Cursor
Codex

# One-time install
openlit coding install --vendor=claude-code

# Or run Claude Code through the launcher (auto-installs)
openlit coding launch claude-code

Manifest path: ~/.claude/plugins/openlit-cc/. Hooks wired: SessionStart, UserPromptSubmit, PreToolUse, PostToolUse, Stop, SubagentStop, SessionEnd. Claude Code’s transcript JSONL (transcript_path in the hook payload) is tailed on SessionStart for early model attribution and on SessionEnd for authoritative token usage and cost.Optional: Claude Code’s native OpenTelemetry exporter. If you’d rather not install the plugin, or you want a second signal source for cross-checking, you can point Claude Code’s built-in OTel exporter at your OpenLit collector instead. Both paths can run side by side — OpenLit dedupes per session.id (Claude Code’s authoritative cost / tokens from the native path win, while the hook path provides the repository / working folder context that Claude Code itself can’t see).

export CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_TELEMETRY=1
export OTEL_METRICS_EXPORTER=otlp
export OTEL_LOGS_EXPORTER=otlp
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL=grpc
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=$OPENLIT_OTLP_ENDPOINT
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS="Authorization=Bearer $OPENLIT_API_KEY"
# Optional: also enable traces (beta — gives per-tool / per-LLM-turn spans)
export CLAUDE_CODE_ENHANCED_TELEMETRY_BETA=1
export OTEL_TRACES_EXPORTER=otlp

See Claude Code’s monitoring docs for the full environment-variable surface (managed settings, dynamic headers, cardinality controls, content-capture gates). When both paths are active OpenLit folds them into one chat thread; see the “Dual-path coalesce” section of the architecture guide for the details.

openlit coding install --vendor=cursor

Manifest path: ~/.cursor/hooks.json (user scope — applies to every workspace you open in Cursor; works the same on macOS, Linux, and Windows). All Cursor hook events (sessionStart/End, prompt / response / thought, tool + shell + MCP phases, subagent lifecycle, file edits, preCompact) invoke openlit coding hook --vendor=cursor --event=<name> directly. At install time the openlit token in each command is rewritten to the absolute path of the CLI binary that ran openlit coding install, which sidesteps the minimal-PATH that GUI-launched Cursor windows inherit on macOS and Linux, and makes the same manifest work on Windows where there is no shell wrapper.

We merge into ~/.cursor/hooks.json (user scope) rather than drop a plugin tree elsewhere because Cursor only auto-discovers plugins that were registered through its in-app /add-plugin flow. User-scope hooks are the supported way to install agent-wide hooks without an in-app step, and re-running openlit coding install --vendor=cursor is idempotent: prior openlit entries are dropped before the new ones are appended, and any third-party entries you (or another tool) have added are left in place.

openlit coding install --vendor=codex

Manifest path: ~/.codex/plugins/openlit/. Hooks wired: SessionStart, UserPromptSubmit, PreToolUse, PostToolUse, Stop. Codex scopes every hook to a turn_id so we emit one coding_agent.llm.turn span per turn (built on Stop), with the prompt, last-assistant message, and the per-tool calls produced during that turn folded into the OTel-canonical gen_ai.input.messages / gen_ai.output.messages envelopes.The CLI tails ~/.codex/sessions/YYYY/MM/DD/rollout-*.jsonl on Stop to compute the per-turn token delta (input, output, cached, reasoning) from Codex’s running token_count events, so cost rollups in OpenLit reflect the same per-turn deltas Codex itself records.Subagent linkage is read from the transcript’s session_meta record at SessionStart; child turns inherit coding_agent.agent.parent_id automatically so the UI folds them under the spawning chat. Codex doesn’t expose a SessionEnd event, so the session row updates incrementally as each Stop lands.If codex features list doesn’t already enable codex_hooks on your build, add this to ~/.codex/config.toml:

[features]
codex_hooks = true

[plugins."openlit"]
enabled = true

Older Codex builds use hooks = true and plugin_hooks = true instead of codex_hooks.

4. Verify

Run any short coding-agent session, then refresh /agents in your OpenLit UI. You should see a new row labelled with the vendor and a “Coding” badge. Click in for the dedicated Overview / Sessions / Dashboard tabs.

What gets captured

Surface	What you get out of the box
`/agents` row	Per-vendor row with sessions, active users, cost, lines added/removed, acceptance %, commits and PRs — all evaluated over the time range selected in the global filter picker (the materialized rollups are overlaid with a live recompute for any custom window).
Overview tab	The seeded “Coding Agents” dashboard, scoped to this vendor, honoring the picker.
Sessions tab	`coding_agent.session.id` rows within the selected window — outcome, cost, classification, per-session lines (+/−), acceptance %, commits, PRs.
Dashboard tab	Seeded board (vendor breakdown, top tools, top users, top repos, classification, MCP servers, edit decisions, lines accepted, acceptance %, commits, PRs, lines-over-time area, top users by accepted, acceptance breakdown pie). Every widget reads `{{filter.timeLimit.start}}` / `{{filter.timeLimit.end}}`.
Per-user page	Code-impact stat row (lines added, lines accepted, acceptance %, commits, PRs) above the user-scoped dashboard. The stat row re-fetches when the picker changes, so the row and the widgets below it stay in lockstep.
Custom dashboards	Same data — query `otel_traces WHERE SpanName IN ('coding_agent.session', 'coding_agent.edit.decision', 'coding_agent.git.commit', 'coding_agent.git.pull_request', …)`
Metrics pipeline	`coding_agent.session.count`, `coding_agent.session.duration`, `coding_agent.tool.call.count`, `coding_agent.lines_of_code.count`, `coding_agent.edit.decision.count`, `coding_agent.commit.count`, `coding_agent.pull_request.count` counters emitted via the openlit-go MeterProvider

Privacy & governance

Tier-1 redaction runs on every export and scrubs API keys, tokens, and known secret patterns without breaking JSON structure.
Personal vs Work classification is stamped at hook time using the org’s API-key and repo-origin allowlists (configured in OpenLit Settings). Disputes can be filed via POST /api/coding-agents/classification/dispute; surfacing a dispute button on the Sessions tab is planned for the next release.
k=5 cohort floor: viewer-tier accounts cannot see per-user attribution below five sessions. Admins can.

Stop tracking / uninstall

The inverse of openlit coding install. Removes the per-vendor host plugin manifests written by install, deregisters the plugin from the vendor’s own CLI where applicable (Claude Code, Codex), and leaves your shared config alone by default so you can re-onboard without re-entering credentials.

openlit coding uninstall --vendor=cursor          # one vendor
openlit coding uninstall --vendor=all             # every vendor at once
openlit coding uninstall --vendor=all --purge     # also drop ~/.config/openlit + session-state cache
openlit coding uninstall --vendor=cursor --dry-run  # preview without touching disk

What each flag removes:

Path	Removed by `--vendor=<v>`	Removed by `--purge`
`~/.claude/plugins/openlit-cc/`	✓ (when `<v>` is `claude-code` or `all`)	—
`~/.local/share/openlit/claude-marketplace/`	✓ (when `<v>` is `claude-code` or `all`)	—
openlit entries in `~/.cursor/hooks.json` (other tools’ entries preserved; file deleted if it ends up empty)	✓ (when `<v>` is `cursor` or `all`)	—
`~/.local/share/openlit/codex-marketplace/`	✓ (when `<v>` is `codex` or `all`)	—
`claude plugin uninstall openlit-cc@openlit`	✓ best-effort	—
`codex plugin remove openlit@openlit` + `codex plugin marketplace remove openlit`	✓ best-effort	—
`~/.config/openlit/` (your `configure` output)	—	✓
`<UserCacheDir>/openlit/sessions/` (session-state cache)	—	✓

The openlit binary itself is not touched. Uninstall it the way you installed it:

brew uninstall openlit                # Homebrew
rm ~/.openlit/bin/openlit             # curl|sh installer
rm $(go env GOPATH)/bin/openlit       # go install

Troubleshooting

First stop — run openlit doctor. It prints the resolved config, the cached session count, the installed plugin paths, and TCP-dials your OTLP endpoint. Exit code 1 means at least one failure; 0 (possibly with warnings) means the CLI is wired up.
No row on /agents — the hook never writes to a log file; it emits to stderr, which is captured by the host coding agent’s own logs (Claude Code: ~/.claude/logs/; Cursor: Developer Tools → Console; Codex: ~/.codex/). Set OPENLIT_DEBUG_PAYLOAD_DIR=/tmp/openlit-debug to capture the exact JSON the vendor is sending the hook — useful when fields appear to be missing on the resulting spans.
Hooks ran but no spans — confirm openlit configure --show reports the right endpoint. The CLI never reads ~/.zshrc; if you set OPENLIT_* in your shell rc, source it before launching the agent.
“Database config not found” on /agents — your OpenLit installation hasn’t run the latest migrations. Restart the openlit container or run the migration manually (pnpm --filter client run migrate).

What’s next

The CLI reserves subcommands for prompts, traces, and eval; these will light up in subsequent releases without breaking the coding-agent integration.

Getting Started

Observability

Evaluations

Dashboards

Otter (AI Copilot)

Pricing & Models

Prompts and Experiments

Developer Resources

Coding Agents — Onboarding

Prerequisites

1. Install the CLI

2. Configure once

3. Wire each vendor

4. Verify

What gets captured

Privacy & governance

Stop tracking / uninstall

Troubleshooting

What’s next

​Prerequisites

​1. Install the CLI

​2. Configure once

​3. Wire each vendor

​4. Verify

​What gets captured

​Privacy & governance

​Stop tracking / uninstall

​Troubleshooting

​What’s next

Prerequisites

1. Install the CLI

2. Configure once

3. Wire each vendor

4. Verify

What gets captured

Privacy & governance

Stop tracking / uninstall

Troubleshooting

What’s next