Console Exporter for OpenTelemetry .NET

December 22, 2025 ยท View on GitHub

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The console exporter prints data to the Console window. ConsoleExporter supports exporting logs, metrics and traces.

Warning

This exporter is intended for debugging and learning purposes. It is not recommended for production use. The output format is not standardized and can change at any time. If a standardized format for exporting telemetry to stdout is desired, upvote on this feature request.

Installation

dotnet add package OpenTelemetry.Exporter.Console

See the individual "getting started" examples depending on the signal being used:

Configuration

See the TestConsoleExporter.cs for an example of how to use the exporter for exporting traces to a collection.

You can configure the ConsoleExporter through Options types properties and environment variables. The Options type setters take precedence over the environment variables.

MetricReaderOptions (metrics)

For metrics, AddConsoleExporter() pairs the exporter with a PeriodicExportingMetricReader. Use MetricReaderOptions to configure temporality and export interval/timeout:

var meterProvider = Sdk.CreateMeterProviderBuilder()
    // rest of config not shown here.
    .AddConsoleExporter((_, metricReaderOptions) =>
    {
        metricReaderOptions.TemporalityPreference = MetricReaderTemporalityPreference.Delta;

        metricReaderOptions.PeriodicExportingMetricReaderOptions.ExportIntervalMilliseconds = 10_000;
        metricReaderOptions.PeriodicExportingMetricReaderOptions.ExportTimeoutMilliseconds = 5_000;
    })
    .Build();

See TestMetrics.cs for a runnable example.

Environment Variables

The following environment variables can be used to override the default values of the PeriodicExportingMetricReaderOptions (following the OpenTelemetry specification).

Environment variablePeriodicExportingMetricReaderOptions property
OTEL_METRIC_EXPORT_INTERVALExportIntervalMilliseconds
OTEL_METRIC_EXPORT_TIMEOUTExportTimeoutMilliseconds

References