# nixos-telemetry: A NixOS flake for opt-in observability pipelines

DevFeed: [nixos-telemetry: A NixOS flake for opt-in observability pipelines](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/nixos-telemetry-flake-31359.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nixos-telemetry-flake/79704>)

Author: palo

Published: 2026-08-23T08:27:36Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [Announcements - NixOS Discourse](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/announcements-nixos-discourse.md>)

Topics: [telemetry](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/telemetry.md>), [OpenTelemetry](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/opentelemetry.md>), [Tooling](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/tooling.md>), [log management](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/log-management.md>), [Prometheus](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/prometheus.md>), [Grafana](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/grafana.md>), [Grafana Alloy](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/grafana-alloy.md>)

Tags: [announcements](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/announcements.md>), [collector](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/collector.md>), [config](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/config.md>), [grafana](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/grafana.md>), [grafana-alloy](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/grafana-alloy.md>), [loki](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/loki.md>), [opentelemetry](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/opentelemetry.md>), [prometheus](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/prometheus.md>), [telemetry](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/telemetry.md>)

## AI overview

A discussion introduces nixos-telemetry, a NixOS flake that uses an OpenTelemetry collector to connect opt-in scrapers, storage, and visualization components. It supports local stacks, remote forwarding, and fan-out to multiple sinks through a unified option tree.

## Source excerpt

Hi everyone, I'd like to share nixos-telemetry, a NixOS flake that makes setting up observability in your infrastructure easy. An OpenTelemetry collector sits at the center of each machine. Scrapers, storage, and visualization are all opt-in. You enable what you need; the collector wires the pipeline together automatically. Why? Wiring up telemetry in NixOS today means gluing together Telegraf, Prometheus, Loki, Grafana, Alloy, each with its own config format, ports, and inter-service dependencies. nixos-telemetry puts all of that behind a single telemetry.* option tree: Turn on the system with telemetry.enable = true. Every app is opt-in. Nothing starts that you didn't ask for. The collector starts automatically once a complete pipeline exists, a matching source and sink for the same signal type. No sink? It waits. Forward to a remote collector, run a full local stack, or both. Fan-out to multiple sinks is supported. What it looks like Full local stack on one machine: { telemetry.enable = true; telemetry.telegraf.enable = true; # host metrics telemetry.alloy.enable = true; # journald logs telemetry.prometheus.enable = true; # metrics storage telemetry.loki.enable = true; # logs storage telemetry.grafana.enable = true; # visualization (datasources auto-provisioned) } Forward to a remote collector: # machine 1 { telemetry.enable = true; telemetry.telegraf.enable = true; telemetry.opentelemetry.exporter.endpoints.remote = "100.64.0.1:4317"; } # machine 2 { telemetry.enable = true; telemetry.opentelemetry.receiver.endpoint = "0.0.0.0:4317"; } Full option reference: OPTIONS.md Thanks! Regarding Discourse LLM Policy : I must disclose that substantial parts of this project are llm generated. And because I coppied parts of the README in this post, substantial parts of this announcmement too. 27 posts - 7 participants Read full topic