Watch a CI run while it runs

@vzn/vx-otel sends each task's trace as soon as it ends. You see the
slow task in Grafana or Honeycomb while the build still runs.

Turn it on

Add the plugin and point the standard OTel variable at a collector.

// .vx/workspace.ts
import { defineWorkspace } from '@vzn/vx/config'
import { otel } from '@vzn/vx-otel'

export default defineWorkspace({ plugins: [otel()] })

$ OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=http://localhost:4318 vx run build test --all

With no endpoint set it sends nothing, so keep it on everywhere.

What arrives, and when

Each record names the run, host, commit and repo, and on CI the
pipeline and pull request.

It never holds a task

A finished task only queues its records. Sends go at most once a
second, one at a time. A refused send warns once and the build goes on.
Sending live costs no more than one send at the end:

Median of 10 interleaved runs · private/vx-bench/generate.ts, 60 projects, build --all --no-cache · local OTLP stub · CPU is vx's user + system time · Linux x64, 4 cores · vx 4c308fb · 2026-10-23

otel({ live: false }) sends everything at the end instead. Why
telemetry can never fail a build:
Observability that cannot break a run.
The full attribute list is in the
vx-otel README.
More at vznjs.github.io/vx.

Originally published on the vx blog. vx is open-source (MIT) task orchestration with a build cache: vznjs.github.io/vx · GitHub.

_{Written with AI assistance.}