Create custom metrics

This page shows how to publish custom OpenTelemetry metrics for your project and monitor them with the plugin.

To add a custom metric, you need to create a new Meter and an instrument from that meter. You can use static fields or newly added IMeterFactory interface.

static Meter meter = new Meter("Example.MyMeter");
static Counter<int> counter = meter.CreateCounter<int>("my-counter");

You can then increment the metric from the proper place in the application.

async Task StartMetricProducingTask()
{
    while (true)
    {
        // 👇 Increment the counter every 200 ms
        counter.Add(1);
        await Task.Delay(200);
    }
}

There are different types of instruments you can create:

Counter
UpDownCounter
ObservableCounter
ObservableUpDownCounter
ObservableGauge
Histogram

More information about them and some best practices you can find in the .NET documentation.

To watch new metrics, specify your meter name in the Metrics field.

Monitor counters dialog with custom meter

Last modified: 08 August 2023