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Next.js Instrumentation Explained — Monitoring and Observability

DodaTech Updated 2026-06-28 1 min read

In this tutorial, you will learn about Next.js Instrumentation Explained. We cover key concepts, practical examples, and best practices to help you master this topic.

Next.js instrumentation hook (instrumentation.ts) runs code during server startup to register OpenTelemetry, error tracking, performance monitoring, and custom metric collection.

What You'll Learn

  • instrumentation.ts setup
  • OpenTelemetry integration
  • Error tracking (Sentry)
  • Custom logging
  • Performance monitoring

Why It Matters

Instrumentation centralizes Observability setup, ensuring all server requests are traced, errors are captured, and performance data is collected without per-route boilerplate.

// instrumentation.ts
import { registerOTel } from "@vercel/otel";

export function register() {
  registerOTel({ serviceName: "my-app" });
}

// lib/telemetry.ts
import { trace, context } from "@opentelemetry/api";

export function withTrace(name, fn) {
  const tracer = trace.getTracer("my-app");
  return tracer.startActiveSpan(name, (span) => {
    try {
      return context.with(trace.setSpan(context.active(), span), fn);
    } finally {
      span.end();
    }
  });
}

// lib/logger.ts
import pino from "pino";

export const logger = pino({
  level: process.env.LOG_LEVEL || "info",
  transport: process.env.NODE_ENV === "development"
    ? { target: "pino-pretty" }
    : undefined,
});

// app/api/tasks/route.js
import { logger } from "@/lib/logger";
import { withTrace } from "@/lib/telemetry";

export async function GET(request) {
  return withTrace("tasks.get", async () => {
    logger.info({ method: "GET", url: request.url }, "Fetching tasks");
    const tasks = await db.getTasks();
    logger.info({ count: tasks.length }, "Tasks fetched successfully");
    return Response.json(tasks);
  });
}

Expected output: OpenTelemetry traces all requests, structured logging captures request details, and errors are tracked for monitoring and debugging.

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