Monitor PostgreSQL (psycopg3) using OpenTelemetry

OpenLIT uses OpenTelemetry Auto-Instrumentation to help you monitor applications using PostgreSQL with the psycopg3 driver. This includes tracking query performance, transaction operations, connection pool metrics, and more. Auto-instrumentation means you don’t have to set up monitoring manually for different databases or query types. By simply adding OpenLIT in your application, all the necessary monitoring configurations are automatically set up. The integration is compatible with

psycopg >= 3.0.0
psycopg_pool (optional, for connection pool monitoring)

Supported Operations

Operation	Description
`execute`	Single query execution
`executemany`	Batch query execution
`copy`	COPY operations for bulk data transfer
`callproc`	Stored procedure calls
`commit`	Transaction commits
`rollback`	Transaction rollbacks

PostgreSQL-Specific Features

OpenLIT automatically detects and enriches traces with PostgreSQL-specific features:

pgvector Support: Detects vector similarity operators (<=>, <->, <#>) and records the similarity metric (cosine, L2, inner product)
Full-Text Search: Detects tsvector, tsquery, websearch_to_tsquery, and ts_rank operations

Get started

Install OpenLIT

Open your command line or terminal and run:

pip install openlit

Initialize OpenLIT in your Application

Python
Typescript

Zero Code Instrumentation
One-Line Instrumentation

Perfect for existing applications - no code modifications needed:

Via CLI Arguments
Via Environment Variables

# Configure via CLI arguments
openlit-instrument \
  --service-name my-ai-app \
  --environment production \
  --otlp-endpoint YOUR_OTEL_ENDPOINT \
  python your_app.py

# Configure via environment variables
export OTEL_SERVICE_NAME=my-ai-app
export OTEL_DEPLOYMENT_ENVIRONMENT=production
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=YOUR_OTEL_ENDPOINT

# Run with zero code changes
openlit-instrument python your_app.py

Perfect for: Legacy applications, production systems where code changes need approval, quick testing, or when you want to add observability without touching existing code.

Via Function Parameters
Via Environment Variables

import openlit

openlit.init(otlp_endpoint="YOUR_OTEL_ENDPOINT")

Add the following two lines to your application code:

import openlit

openlit.init()

Then, configure the your OTLP endpoint using environment variable:

export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=YOUR_OTEL_ENDPOINT

One-Line Instrumentation (SDK)

Via Function Parameters
Via Environment Variables

import openlit from "openlit"

openlit.init({ otlpEndpoint: "YOUR_OTEL_ENDPOINT" })

Add the following two lines to your application code:

import openlit from "openlit"

openlit.init()

Then, configure the your OTLP endpoint using environment variable:

export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=YOUR_OTEL_ENDPOINT

Replace: YOUR_OTEL_ENDPOINT with the URL of your OpenTelemetry backend, such as http://127.0.0.1:4318 if you are using OpenLIT and a local OTel Collector.To send metrics and traces to other Observability tools, refer to the supported destinations.For more advanced configurations and application use cases, visit the OpenLIT Python repository or OpenLIT Typescript repository.

Advanced Configuration

Database-Specific Options

OpenLIT provides additional configuration options for database instrumentation:

Parameter	Environment Variable	Description	Default
`capture_db_parameters`	`OPENLIT_CAPTURE_DB_PARAMETERS`	Capture query parameters in OTel per-key format (`db.query.parameter.<key>`)	`False`

capture_db_parameters

When enabled, query parameters are recorded as per-key span attributes following the OTel semantic convention db.query.parameter.<key>.

import openlit

openlit.init(capture_db_parameters=True)

Security Risk: Enabling capture_db_parameters may expose sensitive data like passwords, tokens, or PII in your traces. Only enable in development environments or when you’re certain parameters don’t contain sensitive information.

Quickstart: Database Observability

Production-ready database monitoring setup in 2 simple steps

Configuration

Configure the OpenLIT SDK according to your requirements.

Destinations

Send telemetry to Datadog, Grafana, New Relic, and other observability stacks

Zero-code observability with the OpenLIT Controller

Discover and instrument LLM traffic across Kubernetes, Docker, and Linux using eBPF — no code changes required.

Getting Started

Core Features

Integrations

Destinations

Monitor PostgreSQL (psycopg3) using OpenTelemetry

Supported Operations

PostgreSQL-Specific Features

Get started

Advanced Configuration

Database-Specific Options

capture_db_parameters

Quickstart: Database Observability

Configuration

Destinations

Zero-code observability with the OpenLIT Controller

​Supported Operations

​PostgreSQL-Specific Features

​Get started

​Advanced Configuration

​Database-Specific Options

​capture_db_parameters

Quickstart: Database Observability

Configuration

Destinations

Zero-code observability with the OpenLIT Controller

Supported Operations

PostgreSQL-Specific Features

Get started

Advanced Configuration

Database-Specific Options

capture_db_parameters