feat: Add OTel Collector internal metrics doc & dashboard page

components/shared/K8sNextSteps.tsx

@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ export default function K8sNextSteps() {
         </CustomLink>
       </li>
       <li>
-        <CustomLink href="https://signoz.io/docs/opentelemetry-collection-agents/k8s/otel-operator/overview/">
+        <CustomLink href="https://signoz.io/docs/opentelemetry-collection-agents/k8s/otel-operator/overview/#opentelemetry-auto-instrumentation-injection">
           Use OpenTelemetry Operator for automatic instrumentation
         </CustomLink>
       </li>

constants/listicles/dashboard-templates.json

@@ -445,6 +445,12 @@
       "clickName": "OpenRouter Dashboard Template",
       "icon": "/svgs/icons/LLMMonitoring/openrouter-logo.webp"
     },
+    {
+      "name": "OpenTelemetry Collector",
+      "href": "/docs/dashboards/dashboard-templates/opentelemetry-collector-dashboard",
+      "clickName": "OpenTelemetry Collector Dashboard Template",
+      "icon": "/img/icons/listicle/si-opentelemetry.svg"
+    },
     {
       "name": "PgBouncer",
       "href": "/docs/dashboards/dashboard-templates/pgbouncer-dashboard",

constants/listicles/metrics-quick-start.json

@@ -186,6 +186,12 @@
           "href": "/docs/metrics-management/keda-metrics",
           "clickName": "KEDA Metrics Link",
           "icon": "/img/icons/listicle/lucide-zap-purple.svg"
+        },
+        {
+          "name": "OpenTelemetry Collector",
+          "href": "/docs/metrics-management/opentelemetry-collector-metrics",
+          "clickName": "OpenTelemetry Collector Metrics Link",
+          "icon": "/img/icons/listicle/si-opentelemetry.svg"
         }
       ]
     },

data/docs-side-nav/main.json

@@ -1936,6 +1936,11 @@
                 "type": "doc",
                 "route": "/docs/metrics-management/keda-metrics",
                 "label": "KEDA Metrics"
+              },
+              {
+                "type": "doc",
+                "route": "/docs/metrics-management/opentelemetry-collector-metrics",
+                "label": "OpenTelemetry Collector Metrics"
               }
             ]
           },
@@ -2641,6 +2646,11 @@
             "route": "/docs/dashboards/dashboard-templates/openrouter-dashboard",
             "label": "OpenRouter"
           },
+          {
+            "type": "doc",
+            "route": "/docs/dashboards/dashboard-templates/opentelemetry-collector-dashboard",
+            "label": "OpenTelemetry Collector"
+          },
           {
             "type": "doc",
             "route": "/docs/dashboards/dashboard-templates/pgbouncer-dashboard",

data/docs/dashboards/dashboard-templates/opentelemetry-collector-dashboard.mdx

@@ -0,0 +1,90 @@
+---
+date: 2026-06-23
+title: OpenTelemetry Collector Pipeline Health Dashboard Template
+description: Monitor OTel Collector receiver throughput, processor drops, exporter delivery, queue depth, and process resource usage.
+doc_type: explanation
+---
+
+Use this dashboard to monitor your OpenTelemetry Collector instances across receiver throughput, processor drop rates, exporter delivery, queue depth, and process resource usage.
+
+<Admonition type="note">
+  Before importing this dashboard, send OTel Collector internal metrics to SigNoz. Follow the [Send OTel Collector Metrics](https://signoz.io/docs/metrics-management/opentelemetry-collector-metrics/) guide to configure the built-in OTLP telemetry reader.
+</Admonition>
+
+<Figure
+  src="/img/docs/dashboards/dashboard-templates/opentelemetry-collector-dashboard.webp"
+  alt="OpenTelemetry Collector Pipeline Health Dashboard"
+  caption="OpenTelemetry Collector Pipeline Health Dashboard"
+/>
+
+<div className="flex justify-center">
+  <DashboardActions
+    dashboardJsonUrl="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SigNoz/dashboards/refs/heads/main/opentelemetry-collector/opentelemetry-collector-dashboard.json"
+    dashboardName="OpenTelemetry Collector"
+  />
+</div>
+
+## What This Dashboard Monitors
+
+- **Overview**: Spans, metric points, and log records received and sent per second at a glance
+- **Receivers**: Accepted and refused/failed signals per second, broken down by receiver
+- **Processors**: Items entering and leaving each processor, batch send size percentiles, and timeout-triggered flushes
+- **Exporters**: Sent and failed signals by exporter, queue size vs. capacity, queue utilization percentage, and in-flight requests
+- **Process Resources**: Heap memory, RSS memory, CPU usage, and memory allocation rate per Collector instance
+
+## Metrics Included
+
+### Overview
+
+- **Spans Received /s**: Spans entering the pipeline per second across all receivers
+- **Metric Points Received /s**: Metric data points entering the pipeline per second
+- **Log Records Received /s**: Log records entering the pipeline per second
+- **Spans Sent /s**: Spans delivered to the backend per second across all exporters
+- **Metric Points Sent /s**: Metric data points delivered to the backend per second
+- **Log Records Sent /s**: Log records delivered to the backend per second
+
+### Receivers
+
+- **Accepted Spans /s by Receiver**: Spans entering the pipeline per second, by receiver
+- **Refused & Failed Spans /s by Receiver**: Refused spans from pipeline back-pressure and failed spans from receiver errors, grouped by receiver. Investigate any non-zero value.
+- **Accepted Metric Points /s by Receiver**: Metric points entering the pipeline per second, by receiver
+- **Refused & Failed Metric Points /s by Receiver**: Refused and failed metric points by receiver
+- **Accepted Log Records /s by Receiver**: Log records entering the pipeline per second, by receiver
+- **Refused & Failed Log Records /s by Receiver**: Refused and failed log records by receiver
+
+### Processors
+
+- **Items Incoming /s by Processor**: Signals entering each processor per second
+- **Items Outgoing /s by Processor**: Signals leaving each processor per second. A rate below incoming means the processor is dropping or filtering data.
+- **Batch Send Size (p50/p95/p99)**: Items per batch at three percentiles. A large gap between p50 and p99 points to bursty traffic.
+- **Batch Timeout Trigger Sends /s by Processor**: Batches flushed by timeout per second by processor. A high rate with small batch sizes means the configured batch size is too large for current traffic.
+
+### Exporters
+
+- **Spans Sent /s by Exporter**: Spans delivered to the backend per second, by exporter
+- **Span Send Failures /s by Exporter**: Spans the exporter failed to deliver per second. Investigate any non-zero value.
+- **Metric Points Sent /s by Exporter**: Metric points delivered per second, by exporter
+- **Metric Point Send Failures /s by Exporter**: Metric points the exporter failed to deliver per second
+- **Log Records Sent /s by Exporter**: Log records delivered per second, by exporter
+- **Log Record Send Failures /s by Exporter**: Log records the exporter failed to deliver per second
+- **Exporter Queue Size vs Capacity**: Queue depth vs. capacity per exporter. Size approaching capacity means the exporter cannot keep up with incoming data.
+- **Exporter Queue Utilization %**: Queue fill percentage per exporter. Above 80% the exporter risks dropping data under sustained load.
+- **Exporter In-Flight Requests by Exporter**: Active export requests including retries. High values alongside a slow-draining queue point to backend latency or connectivity issues.
+
+### Process Resources
+
+- **Heap Memory Allocated**: Heap bytes held by live objects per Collector instance. Sustained growth between GC cycles points to a memory leak.
+- **Process RSS Memory**: Physical memory per Collector instance, including Go runtime overhead
+- **CPU Usage (user + system)**: CPU seconds consumed per second per instance. Values near the available core count indicate CPU saturation.
+- **Memory Allocation Rate**: Heap allocation throughput in bytes per second per instance. High rates increase GC pressure and CPU overhead.
+
+## Dashboard Variables
+
+- **service_name**: Filter by Collector service name
+
+## Related Dashboards
+
+- [Host Metrics (VM)](https://signoz.io/docs/dashboards/dashboard-templates/hostmetrics-vm/)
+- [Kubernetes Node Metrics](https://signoz.io/docs/dashboards/dashboard-templates/kubernetes-node-metrics-overall/)
+- [FluxCD](https://signoz.io/docs/dashboards/dashboard-templates/fluxcd-dashboard/)
+- [KEDA](https://signoz.io/docs/dashboards/dashboard-templates/keda/)

data/docs/metrics-management/opentelemetry-collector-metrics.mdx

@@ -0,0 +1,175 @@
+---
+date: 2026-06-23
+title: Monitor OpenTelemetry Collector Pipeline Health with SigNoz
+description: Push OpenTelemetry Collector internal metrics to SigNoz using the built-in OTLP telemetry reader to monitor pipeline health.
+doc_type: howto
+---
+
+The OpenTelemetry Collector emits its own pipeline health metrics under the `otelcol_*` prefix. Configure the built-in OTLP telemetry reader to push those metrics to SigNoz.
+
+<Admonition type="info" title="Using self-hosted SigNoz?" defaultCollapsed="true">
+  Steps are the same. Update the exporter endpoint and remove the ingestion key header or `signozApiKey` value as shown in [Cloud to Self-Hosted](https://signoz.io/docs/ingestion/cloud-vs-self-hosted/#cloud-to-self-hosted).
+</Admonition>
+
+## Prerequisites
+
+- OpenTelemetry Collector v0.92 or later
+- An instance of SigNoz ([Cloud](https://signoz.io/teams/) or [Self-Hosted](https://signoz.io/docs/install/self-host/))
+
+## How it works
+
+The Collector has a built-in telemetry pipeline that reports internal counters and gauges, including received spans, processor drops, exporter queue depth, and process memory. Add an OTLP periodic reader under **service.telemetry.metrics** to send those metrics to SigNoz at a configured interval.
+
+`level: normal` (the default) covers receiver throughput, exporter queues, batch processor stats, and process resources. `level: detailed` adds per-method HTTP/RPC dimensions on exporter calls.
+
+## Steps
+
+### Step 1: Add the telemetry reader
+
+Add a `service.telemetry` block to your Collector config with a periodic OTLP exporter pointing at SigNoz:
+
+```yaml:config.yaml
+service:
+  telemetry:
+    resource:
+      service.name: "<service-name>"
+    metrics:
+      level: normal
+      readers:
+        - periodic:
+            interval: 60000
+            exporter:
+              otlp:
+                protocol: "http/protobuf"
+                endpoint: "https://ingest.<region>.signoz.cloud:443"
+                headers:
+                  signoz-ingestion-key: "<your-ingestion-key>"
+```
+
+Verify these values:
+
+- `<region>`: Your [SigNoz Cloud region](https://signoz.io/docs/ingestion/signoz-cloud/overview/#endpoint)
+- `<your-ingestion-key>`: Your SigNoz [ingestion key](https://signoz.io/docs/ingestion/signoz-cloud/keys/)
+- `<service-name>`: A unique name for this Collector instance. If you run multiple instances, use different names to distinguish them in the dashboard.
+
+<Admonition type="note">
+  This config block is independent of your pipeline. You do not need to add a receiver, processor, or pipeline.
+</Admonition>
+
+### Step 2: Apply and restart
+
+<Tabs entityName="environment">
+<TabItem value="vm" label="VM" default>
+
+Validate the config and restart the Collector service:
+
+```bash
+sudo /usr/bin/otelcol-contrib validate --config /etc/otelcol-contrib/config.yaml
+sudo systemctl restart otelcol-contrib
+```
+
+Tail the logs to confirm the telemetry reader started with no errors:
+
+```bash
+sudo journalctl -u otelcol-contrib -f
+```
+
+</TabItem>
+<TabItem value="docker" label="Docker">
+
+Restart the Collector container:
+
+```bash
+docker compose up -d
+docker logs -f signoz-collection-agent
+```
+
+For `docker run`, stop and rerun the container with the updated config mount.
+
+</TabItem>
+<TabItem value="k8s" label="Kubernetes">
+
+Enable self-telemetry metrics in your `override-values.yaml` for the [SigNoz k8s-infra chart](https://signoz.io/docs/opentelemetry-collection-agents/k8s/k8s-infra/install-k8s-infra/):
+
+```yaml:override-values.yaml
+presets:
+  selfTelemetry:
+    endpoint: https://ingest.<region>.signoz.cloud:443
+    insecure: false
+    insecureSkipVerify: false
+    signozApiKey: <your-ingestion-key>
+    metrics:
+      enabled: true
+```
+
+Use this preset for both the DaemonSet collector (`otelAgent`) and the deployment collector (`otelDeployment`).
+
+If you use the OpenTelemetry Helm chart instead of k8s-infra, add the `service.telemetry` block from Step 1 under `config.service.telemetry` in your chart values.
+
+Deploy the chart update:
+
+```bash
+helm upgrade --install <release-name> signoz/k8s-infra \
+  -n signoz \
+  -f override-values.yaml
+```
+
+Check the Collector pod logs:
+
+```bash
+kubectl get pods -n signoz
+kubectl logs -n signoz <daemonset-pod-name> -f
+```
+
+</TabItem>
+</Tabs>
+
+## Validate
+
+Open [Metrics Explorer](https://signoz.io/docs/metrics-management/metrics-explorer/) in SigNoz and search for `otelcol_`. You should see metrics such as `otelcol_exporter_send_failed_spans`.
+
+<Figure
+  src="/img/docs/metrics/otel-collector/sample-metrics.webp"
+  alt="OTel Collector internal metrics in SigNoz Metrics Explorer"
+  caption="OTel Collector internal metrics in SigNoz Metrics Explorer"
+/>
+
+<details>
+<ToggleHeading>
+
+## Troubleshooting
+</ToggleHeading>
+
+### No `otelcol_` metrics in SigNoz
+
+Check the Collector logs for export errors:
+
+```bash
+sudo journalctl -u otelcol-contrib -f
+```
+
+For Docker, use `docker logs -f signoz-collection-agent`. For Kubernetes, use the Collector pod logs.
+
+If the logs show authentication errors, confirm the ingestion key and endpoint region are correct. If they show connection errors, confirm the Collector can reach `ingest.<region>.signoz.cloud:443`.
+
+Wait at least one full `interval` (60 seconds with the config above) after restarting before checking.
+
+### Some panels are empty
+
+Check `service.telemetry.metrics.level`. `basic` omits batch processor metrics. `none` disables telemetry. Use `normal` or `detailed`.
+
+### Duplicate metric points
+
+You can run multiple Collector instances with the same `service.name`. The dashboard groups them by `service.instance.id`, which the Collector assigns per process. All instances appear under the shared service name and can be filtered by instance.
+
+</details>
+
+## Next Steps
+
+- Import the prebuilt [OpenTelemetry Collector dashboard](https://signoz.io/docs/dashboards/dashboard-templates/opentelemetry-collector-dashboard/).
+- Set up [alerts](https://signoz.io/docs/userguide/alerts-management/).
+- Learn more about the [OpenTelemetry Collector configuration](https://signoz.io/docs/opentelemetry-collection-agents/opentelemetry-collector/configuration/).
+
+## Get Help
+
+<GetHelp />