Overview
External API Monitoring works automatically with properly instrumented applications. This document explains the requirements needed for this feature to work.
Setup
To enable API monitoring, make sure that your application is instrumented correctly. For details about instrumenting application for your language/framework, please refer this document.
For every external call, spans must include the below attributes:
server.addressornet.peer.nameurl.fullorhttp.url
These span attributes are used to automatically derive API calls.
In case of manual instrumentation, ensure that all the client to server calls are instrumented and the above attributes are added explicitly for each outbound request.
Verification
To verify that your instrumentation is correctly configured:
- Generate some traffic that includes external API calls
- Navigate to the External API Monitoring section in SigNoz
- Check if your external domains appear in the list
Troubleshooting
If your external API domains/endpoints aren't appearing in the monitoring interface:
- Check that your service is properly instrumented and sending traces to SigNoz
- Verify that your HTTP client libraries are being instrumented
- For manual instrumentation, ensure you're adding all required attributes
- If you're using OpenTelemetry collector, review its configuration to ensure it's forwarding all attributes
Next Steps
Once your application is properly instrumented, head to the Overview section to learn how to use External API Monitoring to gain insights into your external API dependencies.