Clickstack Otel Collector

Set up an OpenTelemetry collector for Managed ClickStack

This skill wires an OpenTelemetry collector into a Managed ClickStack service running on ClickHouse Cloud, sends rich synthetic telemetry through it, and confirms the data is actually visible in ClickStack. It uses clickhousectl for all cloud and SQL operations.

Scope. This skill supports two paths, chosen in Step 0:

1. Deploy a new collector locally. You can do this two ways: individual docker commands, or a docker compose file (recommended, fewer commands and one file to start/stop). Make the user aware of both up front and let them pick in Step 0; do not assume plain docker. Either way runs the ClickStack distribution of the collector, preconfigured for Managed ClickStack.
2. Configure your own existing collector by adding the ClickHouse exporter configuration. We give you the exact config to drop in; you reload your collector. Use this if you already run a collector in a gateway role.

A full Kubernetes deployment (Helm, secrets in K8s Secrets) is out of scope here; the config we generate in path 2 can be applied to a collector running anywhere.

The end state is:

• A dedicated hyperdx_ingest SQL user on the target service, with exactly the grants the collector needs (it creates the otel.* schema on first write).
• A collector forwarding logs, traces, and metrics into the otel database on the service, either the new local ClickStack collector or your existing one.
• Rich synthetic telemetry across several services, severities, span statuses, and metric types, so ClickStack's Search, Service Map, and dashboards have something real to show.
• The service confirmed awake, and the user walked through the ClickStack onboarding in the Cloud console so they can actually see their data.

Secrets (the OTLP auth token and the SQL password) are generated locally, written once to a 0600 env file, and passed to Docker via --env-file. They are never pasted into the chat, never passed with docker run -e, and never echoed back after creation.

Follow these steps in order. Each step depends on state established by the previous one.

Step 0: Choose your path

Ask the user two short questions before doing anything else, because they determine which later steps run.

Question 1: Do you already have an OpenTelemetry collector running in a gateway role?

• No, set one up for me. -> the new-collector path. Continue to Question 2.
• Yes, I have one. -> the existing-collector path. Skip Question 2 (it does not apply), and in Step 6 you will configure their collector rather than deploy a new one.

Question 2 (new-collector path only): Run the collector with individual Docker commands, or a Docker Compose file?

• Docker Compose (recommended). Fewer commands, one file to start and stop, easiest to re-run. Best if docker compose is available.
• Individual Docker commands. Use if Compose is not installed or you prefer explicit commands.

Record the answers as COLLECTOR_PATH (new or existing) and, for the new path, DEPLOY_MODE (compose or run). Refer back to them in Step 6 and Step 7.

Step 1: Batch the permissions up front

Coding agents prompt for approval the first time they see each shell command. To avoid interrupting the user every few steps, ask them once, up front, to allowlist the command prefixes below (the "always allow for this project / session" option in their agent). There are no destructive operations and nothing targets anything outside this project or their ClickHouse Cloud service.

Tell the user, in your own words: "If your agent supports it, choose 'always allow' for each of these the first time it asks. The whole run is read-only against your machine except for the collector container, and write operations against ClickHouse are limited to creating the ingest user and the otel schema."

If the user is on the existing-collector path and does not want to run the optional telemetry check, you can drop docker and curl from the list.

Two approvals are semantic, not prefix-based, so allowlisting won't pre-clear them. Warn the user to expect these and approve them explicitly when they appear:

• The clickhousectl install in Step 3 uses curl … | sh, which many agent sandboxes flag as "downloading and running untrusted code" regardless of any curl allowlist rule.
• The CREATE USER / GRANT in Step 5 may be flagged as "modifying shared production infrastructure," again independent of the clickhousectl prefix rule.

Neither is solved by the table above; they are one-time, intentional, and safe to approve.

Then continue.

Step 2: Confirm the target service and lay down the secrets file

The user's prompt contains a service identifier, either a service ID (UUID) or a service name. Treat that value as SERVICE_REF.

Create a working directory and a 0600 env file that will hold all configuration and secrets for this run. The key names match exactly what the collector image reads, so this same file is passed straight to docker run --env-file (or referenced by Compose) in Step 6. Write it under a tight umask so the secret is never briefly world-readable:

WORKDIR="${WORKDIR:-$HOME/clickstack-otel-collector}"
mkdir -p "$WORKDIR" && chmod 700 "$WORKDIR"
ENV_FILE="$WORKDIR/collector.env"

# Generate secrets WITHOUT printing them; write straight into a private file.
( umask 177
  {
    echo "SERVICE_REF=$SERVICE_REF"
    echo "OTLP_AUTH_TOKEN=$(openssl rand -hex 32)"
    echo "CLICKHOUSE_USER=hyperdx_ingest"
    echo "CLICKHOUSE_PASSWORD=$(openssl rand -hex 24)Aa1-"
    echo "HYPERDX_OTEL_EXPORTER_CLICKHOUSE_DATABASE=otel"
  } > "$ENV_FILE"
)
chmod 600 "$ENV_FILE"
ls -l "$ENV_FILE"

Two things about these values matter and are easy to get wrong:

• Key names are exact. The collector reads CLICKHOUSE_USER, CLICKHOUSE_PASSWORD, CLICKHOUSE_ENDPOINT, and HYPERDX_OTEL_EXPORTER_CLICKHOUSE_DATABASE. Store the SQL password under CLICKHOUSE_PASSWORD (not a custom name); if it is missing, the collector starts with an empty password and dies with code: 516, Authentication failed.
• The password charset is constrained from three directions at once. ClickHouse Cloud rejects passwords without at least one uppercase character and one special character, so a plain hex string fails at CREATE USER. At the same time, the collector's migration tool embeds the password in a connection URL, so @, :, /, ?, #, and % corrupt it (symptom: code: 516 at startup even though the password is "correct"). The recipe above is random hex (lowercase + digits) plus the suffix Aa1-, which adds the required uppercase, a digit, and a URL-unreserved special character (-). The OTLP token has no such rules (it is just a bearer token), so plain hex is fine for it.

The env file uses bare KEY=VALUE lines with no quotes: Docker's --env-file does not do shell parsing, so any quotes you add become part of the value.

On the existing-collector path the OTLP_AUTH_TOKEN is not used by your collector (auth on your receiver is your own setup); it is generated only so the same file works if you later switch to the local collector. The CLICKHOUSE_* values are still used: they go into the exporter config you add to your collector in Step 6.

Every later step runs in a fresh shell, so WORKDIR, ENV_FILE, and any exported credentials do not persist, and WORKDIR/ENV_FILE are not stored inside the env file, so sourcing it can't recover them. Begin each subsequent step's shell with this standard preamble, which re-derives the paths from the deterministic default, loads the saved credentials (Step 3), and loads the config:

WORKDIR="${WORKDIR:-$HOME/clickstack-otel-collector}"; ENV_FILE="$WORKDIR/collector.env"
[ -f "$WORKDIR/creds.env" ] && . "$WORKDIR/creds.env"; set -a; . "$ENV_FILE"; set +a

If you chose a non-default WORKDIR, set it explicitly at the top of every step (the ${WORKDIR:-…} default only covers the standard location). Later steps refer to this as "the standard preamble".

Confirm with the user that SERVICE_REF is correct. Tell them the working directory and that collector.env (mode 0600) now holds the OTLP token and the SQL password. Do not print either secret. If they want to see a value, point them at the file (grep OTLP_AUTH_TOKEN "$ENV_FILE").

If the user supplied their own token or password, write those into the file instead of the generated ones, but keep the same 0600 discipline and make sure any custom password still meets the charset rules above.

Step 3: Authenticate clickhousectl (separate terminal by default)

Check clickhousectl is on PATH. Run this presence check on its own, not chained to the installer: the || curl … | sh form drags a harmless check into a compound command that sandboxes deny wholesale as an untrusted-code download.

which clickhousectl

Only if that prints nothing, install it (the user may need to approve this explicitly, see Step 1):

curl -fsSL https://clickhouse.com/cli | sh

Check authentication:

clickhousectl cloud auth status

This skill needs API key authentication: OAuth is read-only and cannot create users or run write queries. If the API key row is not Active, the user must authenticate.

Do not ask the user to paste their API key and secret into the chat. Anything pasted into the conversation lives in the transcript and has to be rotated afterward. Instead, ask them to authenticate in a separate terminal, then tell you when they are done:

I need a ClickHouse Cloud Admin API key to create the ingest user and verify the data. Please don't paste it here. Instead:

1. In the Cloud console, open Organization → API keys → New API key, and give it the Admin role. (Developer-scoped keys can't provision the per-service Query API endpoint that cloud service query uses.)

2. In a separate terminal, run:

   clickhousectl cloud auth login --api-key <key-id> --api-secret <key-secret>
   

3. Tell me when that's done and I'll re-check the auth status.

Poll until the API key row reports Active, then confirm with a real privileged call rather than trusting the status table alone. Use a ref-agnostic call here: SERVICE_REF may be a name, and cloud service get only accepts a UUID, so confirming with get would fail on a name for reasons unrelated to auth. cloud service list needs no ref and proves the API key works:

clickhousectl cloud auth status
clickhousectl cloud service list --json | jq -r '.[].name'

If the list returns your services, you are authenticated; continue. The actual name-or-UUID resolution of SERVICE_REF happens in Step 4.

Expect to need the env-var credentials (common, not an edge case). Many clickhousectl builds save the credentials file but a freshly spawned shell (such as the one your tool calls run in) doesn't read it, so auth status shows Active yet the very next clickhousectl call reports No credentials found. Rather than treat this as a rare fallback, write a small sourceable creds file once, then load it in every later shell. This keeps each subsequent shell to a single . line instead of two jq re-derivations, and keeps the secret out of the chat:

# Write a private, sourceable creds file next to collector.env.
( umask 177
  { echo "export CLICKHOUSE_CLOUD_API_KEY=$(jq -r .api_key    "$HOME/.clickhouse/credentials.json")"
    echo "export CLICKHOUSE_CLOUD_API_SECRET=$(jq -r .api_secret "$HOME/.clickhouse/credentials.json")"
  } > "$WORKDIR/creds.env"
)
chmod 600 "$WORKDIR/creds.env"

From now on, open every shell that calls clickhousectl with both loads, because env vars do not persist across shells:

. "$WORKDIR/creds.env"; set -a; . "$ENV_FILE"; set +a

Re-run the service list check above with the creds loaded; it should now succeed. Do not continue until a real call works. (If clickhousectl auth status already shows API key … Active and calls succeed without creds.env, you can skip this; but most agent shells need it.)

Step 4: Resolve the service and capture the HTTPS endpoint

Run the standard preamble (Step 2) so the paths, credentials, and config are all loaded in this shell, then resolve the service. If SERVICE_REF is a UUID, use it directly; otherwise look it up by name:

WORKDIR="${WORKDIR:-$HOME/clickstack-otel-collector}"; ENV_FILE="$WORKDIR/collector.env"
[ -f "$WORKDIR/creds.env" ] && . "$WORKDIR/creds.env"; set -a; . "$ENV_FILE"; set +a

# UUID form
clickhousectl cloud service get "$SERVICE_REF" --json > "$WORKDIR/svc.json"

# Name form (note the double quotes: service names can contain spaces or apostrophes,
# e.g. "Alex's test")
clickhousectl cloud service list --json \
  | jq --arg n "$SERVICE_REF" '.[] | select(.name==$n)' > "$WORKDIR/svc.json"

Extract the values you need, coercing the port to an integer. The port serializes as a float (8443.0); if :8443.0 leaks into the endpoint the collector's ClickHouse exporter cannot dial it:

SERVICE_ID=$(jq -r '.id' "$WORKDIR/svc.json")
SERVICE_NAME=$(jq -r '.name' "$WORKDIR/svc.json")
STATE=$(jq -r '.state' "$WORKDIR/svc.json")
CLICKHOUSE_ENDPOINT=$(jq -r '.endpoints[] | select(.protocol=="https")
  | "https://\(.host):\(.port | tonumber | floor)"' "$WORKDIR/svc.json")

# Persist the resolved values back into the env file for later steps and docker --env-file.
# Append only if the key is not already present, so a second run does not duplicate lines.
grep -q '^SERVICE_ID=' "$ENV_FILE" || echo "SERVICE_ID=$SERVICE_ID" >> "$ENV_FILE"
grep -q '^CLICKHOUSE_ENDPOINT=' "$ENV_FILE" || echo "CLICKHOUSE_ENDPOINT=$CLICKHOUSE_ENDPOINT" >> "$ENV_FILE"
printf 'service=%q state=%s endpoint=%s\n' "$SERVICE_NAME" "$STATE" "$CLICKHOUSE_ENDPOINT"

STATE must be running. If it is stopped or starting, ask the user to start the service (or wait), and do not proceed. ClickHouse Cloud services idle-suspend, so even a "running" service can be asleep; the next query both checks reachability and wakes it:

clickhousectl cloud service query --id "$SERVICE_ID" --query "SELECT version()"

A successful response confirms the service is awake and that the per-service Query API key is provisioned. On the first call clickhousectl prints Provisioning Query API endpoint + key for service '<name>'..., which is expected.

Step 5: Create the hyperdx_ingest SQL user and grant it otel.*

This step is the same on both paths: the collector (new or existing) authenticates to ClickHouse as hyperdx_ingest. Open the shell with the combined load so $CLICKHOUSE_PASSWORD (and credentials) are set.

Expect an approval prompt here. The CREATE USER / GRANT statements below are DDL against a Cloud service, so some agent sandboxes flag them as "modifying shared production infrastructure" even when clickhousectl is allowlisted. This is expected; the operations are scoped to a single dedicated ingest user and the otel schema, and the user should approve them explicitly when prompted.

Never put the plaintext password in the SQL. Hash it locally and use sha256_hash. Two problems rule out IDENTIFIED WITH sha256_password BY '$CLICKHOUSE_PASSWORD': the secret would land in the process arg list (visible in ps) and shell history, and, critically, the Query API echoes the failing statement verbatim in its error JSON, so any error (a transient failure, a charset slip) leaks the password into output an agent may surface. Passing it over stdin does not help, the error echo still contains it. Instead compute the SHA-256 hash of the password locally (sha256_hash stores exactly what sha256_password would, so the collector still logs in with the plaintext from the env file) and put only the hash in the statement. A hash is non-reversible, so even an echoed error cannot leak the password:

WORKDIR="${WORKDIR:-$HOME/clickstack-otel-collector}"; ENV_FILE="$WORKDIR/collector.env"
[ -f "$WORKDIR/creds.env" ] && . "$WORKDIR/creds.env"; set -a; . "$ENV_FILE"; set +a

# SHA-256 of the password. openssl is already a dependency; this is portable (macOS + Linux).
# Only this hash ever reaches SQL, output, or `ps`; the plaintext stays in the env file.
PW_HASH=$(printf %s "$CLICKHOUSE_PASSWORD" | openssl dgst -sha256 | awk '{print $NF}')

# Send statements ONE AT A TIME: the Query API runs over HTTP and rejects multi-statement input
# ("Multi-statements are not allowed"), so a single ; -separated batch fails.
clickhousectl cloud service query --id "$SERVICE_ID" --query \
  "CREATE USER IF NOT EXISTS hyperdx_ingest IDENTIFIED WITH sha256_hash BY '$PW_HASH'"
# Re-run safe: force the password to this run's value if the user already existed.
clickhousectl cloud service query --id "$SERVICE_ID" --query \
  "ALTER USER hyperdx_ingest IDENTIFIED WITH sha256_hash BY '$PW_HASH'"

Grant the least privilege the collector needs to create and write the otel.* schema. On the current image the schema migrations and their version table also live in otel, so otel.* is sufficient (this statement carries no secret):

clickhousectl cloud service query --id "$SERVICE_ID" --query \
  "GRANT SELECT, INSERT, CREATE DATABASE, CREATE TABLE, CREATE VIEW ON otel.* TO hyperdx_ingest"

Older image builds: some earlier collector versions ran their goose migrations against a version table in the default database, so startup looped on ACCESS_DENIED until default.* was also granted. If you see ACCESS_DENIED referencing default in the collector logs (Step 6), add this and restart the container:

clickhousectl cloud service query --id "$SERVICE_ID" --query \
  "GRANT SELECT, INSERT, CREATE TABLE ON default.* TO hyperdx_ingest"

Verify:

clickhousectl cloud service query --id "$SERVICE_ID" --query "SHOW GRANTS FOR hyperdx_ingest"

You should see GRANT SELECT, INSERT, CREATE DATABASE, CREATE TABLE, CREATE VIEW ON otel.* TO hyperdx_ingest.

Step 6: Set up the collector

Follow the sub-section that matches the path and mode you chose in Step 0. All three converge on the same end state: a collector accepting OTLP and writing into the otel database on the service. Every code block in this step assumes you have run the standard preamble (Step 2) first, so $WORKDIR, $ENV_FILE, $SERVICE_ID, and the secrets are set in the shell.

Make sure Docker is running (new-collector path only):

WORKDIR="${WORKDIR:-$HOME/clickstack-otel-collector}"; ENV_FILE="$WORKDIR/collector.env"
[ -f "$WORKDIR/creds.env" ] && . "$WORKDIR/creds.env"; set -a; . "$ENV_FILE"; set +a
docker info > /dev/null

Step 6a: New collector with Docker Compose (DEPLOY_MODE=compose)

Write a Compose file in the working directory. It reads the same collector.env for secrets, publishes the OTLP and health ports, and pins a named network so the telemetry generator in Step 7 can reach the collector by container name:

cat > "$WORKDIR/docker-compose.yaml" <<'EOF'
name: clickstack
services:
  otel-collector:
    image: clickhouse/clickstack-otel-collector:latest
    container_name: clickstack-otel-collector
    env_file: ./collector.env
    ports:
      - "4317:4317"   # OTLP gRPC
      - "4318:4318"   # OTLP HTTP
      - "13133:13133" # health
    restart: unless-stopped
    networks: [clickstack-net]
networks:
  clickstack-net:
    name: clickstack-net
EOF

# Compose refuses to adopt a clickstack-net it did not create (a leftover from the docker run
# path, a prior failed Compose run, or a DEPLOY_MODE switch), failing with "network clickstack-net
# was found but has incorrect label". If an orphan exists with no containers attached, remove it so
# Compose can recreate it with its own labels.
if docker network inspect clickstack-net >/dev/null 2>&1 \
   && [ -z "$(docker network inspect clickstack-net -f '{{range .Containers}}{{.Name}} {{end}}')" ]; then
  docker network rm clickstack-net
fi

( cd "$WORKDIR" && docker compose up -d )

Compose creates the clickstack-net network for you (the guard above clears an orphaned one from a prior run first). Skip to Step 6d to confirm health.

Step 6b: New collector with individual Docker commands (DEPLOY_MODE=run)

Create a user-defined network so the telemetry generator in Step 7 can reach the collector by container name:

docker network create clickstack-net 2>/dev/null || true

Start the collector, passing all secrets via --env-file (never -e, which would put the secret on the command line, in shell history, and in ps). The docker rm -f first makes the step safe to re-run:

docker rm -f clickstack-otel-collector 2>/dev/null || true
docker run -d \
  --name clickstack-otel-collector \
  --network clickstack-net \
  --env-file "$ENV_FILE" \
  -p 4317:4317 \
  -p 4318:4318 \
  -p 13133:13133 \
  clickhouse/clickstack-otel-collector:latest

The image reads OTLP_AUTH_TOKEN, CLICKHOUSE_ENDPOINT, CLICKHOUSE_USER, CLICKHOUSE_PASSWORD, and HYPERDX_OTEL_EXPORTER_CLICKHOUSE_DATABASE from the env file. It enables bearer-token auth on the OTLP receiver with an empty scheme, so callers send the raw token as the authorization header (no Bearer prefix). Continue to Step 6d.

Step 6c: Configure your existing collector (COLLECTOR_PATH=existing)

Add the ClickHouse exporter to your existing collector configuration. The config below matches the behavior of the ClickStack distribution, including the Session Replay (rrweb) routing path, and writes into the otel database the ClickStack UI expects.

Reference the endpoint and password as environment variables (${env:…}), do not hardcode them into the config file. The contrib collector expands ${env:VAR} at load time, so keeping the plaintext password out of the config file is both safer and consistent with the rest of this skill. Start your collector with the env vars available, the simplest way is the same --env-file the local collector uses:

# When running the contrib collector in Docker, pass collector.env so ${env:CLICKHOUSE_*} resolve:
#   docker run -d --env-file "$ENV_FILE" -p 4317:4317 -p 4318:4318 \
#     -v "$WORKDIR/your-config.yaml:/etc/otelcol-contrib/config.yaml:ro" \
#     otel/opentelemetry-collector-contrib:latest
# For a non-Docker collector, export CLICKHOUSE_ENDPOINT and CLICKHOUSE_PASSWORD into its
# environment (e.g. an EnvironmentFile= in the systemd unit) before it starts.

Add this to your collector config and reload it:

receivers:
  otlp/hyperdx:
    protocols:
      grpc:
        include_metadata: true
        endpoint: "0.0.0.0:4317"
      http:
        cors:
          allowed_origins: ["*"]
          allowed_headers: ["*"]
        include_metadata: true
        endpoint: "0.0.0.0:4318"

processors:
  batch:
  memory_limiter:
    limit_mib: 1500
    spike_limit_mib: 512
    check_interval: 5s

connectors:
  routing/logs:
    default_pipelines: [logs/out-default]
    error_mode: ignore
    table:
      - context: log
        statement: route() where IsMatch(attributes["rr-web.event"], ".*")
        pipelines: [logs/out-rrweb]

exporters:
  clickhouse:
    database: otel
    endpoint: ${env:CLICKHOUSE_ENDPOINT}
    username: hyperdx_ingest
    password: ${env:CLICKHOUSE_PASSWORD}
    ttl: 720h
    timeout: 5s
    retry_on_failure:
      enabled: true
      initial_interval: 5s
      max_interval: 30s
      max_elapsed_time: 300s
  clickhouse/rrweb:
    database: otel
    endpoint: ${env:CLICKHOUSE_ENDPOINT}
    username: hyperdx_ingest
    password: ${env:CLICKHOUSE_PASSWORD}
    ttl: 720h
    logs_table_name: hyperdx_sessions
    timeout: 5s
    retry_on_failure:
      enabled: true
      initial_interval: 5s
      max_interval: 30s
      max_elapsed_time: 300s

service:
  pipelines:
    traces:
      receivers: [otlp/hyperdx]
      processors: [memory_limiter, batch]
      exporters: [clickhouse]
    metrics:
      receivers: [otlp/hyperdx]
      processors: [memory_limiter, batch]
      exporters: [clickhouse]
    logs/in:
      receivers: [otlp/hyperdx]
      exporters: [routing/logs]
    logs/out-default:
      receivers: [routing/logs]
      processors: [memory_limiter, batch]
      exporters: [clickhouse]
    logs/out-rrweb:
      receivers: [routing/logs]
      processors: [memory_limiter, batch]
      exporters: [clickhouse/rrweb]

Notes for this path:

• If you use your own distribution, ensure it includes the ClickHouse exporter. The upstream contrib image already does.
• Authentication on the OTLP receivers is your existing setup. The OTLP_AUTH_TOKEN generated in Step 2 is not used here unless you wire it into your own auth (for example bearertokenauth).
• After reloading, skip the health check below (that is specific to the local container) and go straight to Step 7 to send a verification burst (point the generator at your own collector's OTLP endpoint).

Step 6d: Confirm the local collector is healthy (new-collector path)

docker ps --filter name=clickstack-otel-collector --format '{{.Status}}'
curl -fsS http://localhost:13133/ && echo
docker logs --tail 40 clickstack-otel-collector 2>&1 | tail -40

A healthy start shows the seed migrations running to completion ([seed] OK ... lines ending in goose: up to current file version: N), then Everything is ready. Begin running and processing data. (or equivalent), docker ps reporting Up ... (healthy), and the health check returning HTTP 200. A seed line like ClickHouse 25.12 < 26.2, falling back to compatibility logs and traces schemas on an older server version is expected and harmless, not an error; do not pause on it. If instead the container exits, the cause is almost always in the seed step:

• code: 516, Authentication failed: password is incorrect -> CLICKHOUSE_PASSWORD is empty or wrong in the env file. The most common slip is storing the password under a different key name (it must be CLICKHOUSE_PASSWORD), or using a password containing @ : / ? # %, which corrupts the migration tool's connection URL.
• [HTTP 403] / data size should be 0 < <huge number> at "server hello" -> same root cause: an empty/wrong password against the HTTPS endpoint.
• TLS / dial errors -> CLICKHOUSE_ENDPOINT is malformed (it must be https://<host>:8443, with no .0 on the port).
• ACCESS_DENIED referencing default -> only on older image builds; apply the default.* grant from the Step 5 note and restart.

Step 7: Send rich synthetic telemetry and verify ingestion

Use telemetrygen (the OpenTelemetry Collector Contrib generator) from its Docker image, so nothing is installed on the host. Instead of one flat burst, send telemetry across several services, severities, span statuses, and metric types, so ClickStack's Search, Service Map, and dashboards have realistic, varied data rather than a single uniform stream.

Load the env file so the token is available, then reference $OTLP_AUTH_TOKEN. The tg helper below redirects all generator output to a log file and prints only an exit code, because telemetrygen echoes its full config, including the authorization header (your OTLP token), to stdout. Never surface that raw output in the chat. telemetrygen's header syntax requires the value to be a quoted string: key="value".

WORKDIR="${WORKDIR:-$HOME/clickstack-otel-collector}"; ENV_FILE="$WORKDIR/collector.env"
[ -f "$WORKDIR/creds.env" ] && . "$WORKDIR/creds.env"; set -a; . "$ENV_FILE"; set +a

TG_IMAGE=ghcr.io/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-contrib/telemetrygen:latest
NET=clickstack-net
ENDPOINT=clickstack-otel-collector:4317
TG_LOG="$WORKDIR/telemetrygen.log"; : > "$TG_LOG"

tg() {
  # usage: tg <logs|traces|metrics> [extra telemetrygen flags...]
  # Output (which contains the token in the echoed config) goes to $TG_LOG, never the terminal.
  local signal="$1"; shift
  docker run --rm --network "$NET" "$TG_IMAGE" "$signal" \
    --otlp-endpoint "$ENDPOINT" \
    --otlp-insecure \
    --otlp-header "authorization=\"$OTLP_AUTH_TOKEN\"" \
    --rate 10 --duration 15s "$@" >>"$TG_LOG" 2>&1
  echo "$signal exit=$?"
}

Existing-collector path: set NET and ENDPOINT to reach your collector instead. If it runs on this host, use --network host style access or point ENDPOINT at its published address, and set the authorization header (or other auth) to whatever your receiver expects. Everything below is otherwise identical.

Judge success by exit code and row counts, never by the generator's logs. Two reasons. First, the log contains your OTLP token (see above), so do not print it. Second, it is noisy and every run ends with rpc error: code = Canceled desc = grpc: the client connection is closing once --duration elapses, which is expected shutdown, not a failure. The tg helper already prints <signal> exit=0 on success. If you must inspect a failure, grep the log for the real signal without dumping it, for example grep -c Unauthenticated "$TG_LOG" (a non-zero count plus a non-zero exit means the authorization header did not match). Confirm overall success with the row counts in the verification queries below.

Quote attribute values so the inner double quotes survive the shell. telemetrygen requires each attribute as key="value" (with literal double quotes), and rejects a bare key=value with value should be a string wrapped in double quotes. If you write --otlp-attributes deployment.environment="production", bash strips the quotes and the container receives deployment.environment=production, which hard-fails. Wrap the whole argument in single quotes so the inner double quotes reach the container, exactly as the tg helper already does for the auth header.

Logs across two services with different severities and bodies, including an error line:

tg logs --service checkout --severity-text Info  --severity-number 9 \
  --body "checkout completed" \
  --otlp-attributes 'deployment.environment="production"' \
  --telemetry-attributes 'http.method="POST"'
tg logs --service payment  --severity-text Error --severity-number 17 \
  --body "payment gateway timeout" \
  --otlp-attributes 'deployment.environment="production"' \
  --telemetry-attributes 'http.status_code="500"'

Traces with child spans, a healthy service and an erroring one (this is what populates the Service Map and the error views):

tg traces --service checkout --child-spans 4 --span-duration 120ms --status-code Ok \
  --otlp-attributes 'deployment.environment="production"' \
  --telemetry-attributes 'http.route="/cart"'
tg traces --service payment  --child-spans 3 --span-duration 400ms --status-code Error \
  --otlp-attributes 'deployment.environment="production"' \
  --telemetry-attributes 'http.route="/charge"'

Metrics across the three common types, so dashboards have gauges, counters, and a distribution:

tg metrics --service checkout --metric-type Sum
tg metrics --service checkout --metric-type Gauge
tg metrics --service payment  --metric-type Histogram

(--metric-type accepts Gauge, Sum, Histogram, or ExponentialHistogram. Add --otlp-http with --otlp-endpoint clickstack-otel-collector:4318 to exercise the HTTP path instead of gRPC.)

Wait ~15 seconds for the collector to flush its batch, then confirm the tables exist:

clickhousectl cloud service query --id "$SERVICE_ID" --query \
  "SELECT name FROM system.tables WHERE database='otel' ORDER BY name"

Then confirm rows are landing. Count by parts.rows, which is signal-agnostic and avoids hard-coding per-signal column names:

clickhousectl cloud service query --id "$SERVICE_ID" --query \
  "SELECT table, sum(rows) AS rows
   FROM system.parts
   WHERE database='otel' AND active
     AND table IN ('otel_logs','otel_traces',
                   'otel_metrics_sum','otel_metrics_gauge',
                   'otel_metrics_histogram','otel_metrics_exponential_histogram',
                   'otel_metrics_summary')
   GROUP BY table ORDER BY table"

You should see non-zero rows for otel_logs, otel_traces, otel_metrics_sum, otel_metrics_gauge, and otel_metrics_histogram. If a signal is missing:

1. Tail the collector logs (docker logs --tail 50 clickstack-otel-collector) for export errors.
2. Confirm the authorization header matches $OTLP_AUTH_TOKEN: grep -c Unauthenticated "$TG_LOG" (a non-zero count means a mismatch, the full message is code = Unauthenticated desc = provided authorization does not match expected scheme or token). Grep rather than print the log, since it contains the token.
3. Re-check CLICKHOUSE_ENDPOINT has the https:// scheme and :8443 port.
4. Some metric kinds flush slowly. Re-run the count after another 30 seconds before declaring failure.

Do not proceed until every expected signal has non-zero rows.

Step 8: Confirm the service is awake, then complete onboarding in ClickStack

Rows in ClickHouse are not the same as the user seeing telemetry in ClickStack. The ClickStack UI requires a one-time onboarding step that auto-detects the data sources, and that step fails if the ClickHouse service has idle-suspended in the meantime.

First, confirm the service is awake. Do not skip this; it is the most common reason onboarding shows no sources. Run a real query and require it to succeed:

clickhousectl cloud service query --id "$SERVICE_ID" --query "SELECT 1"

If this returns 1, the service is awake; continue immediately to the console steps below while it stays warm. If it errors or times out, the service was asleep and this call is waking it: wait a few seconds and re-run until it returns 1. Only proceed once it succeeds.

Then walk the user through onboarding explicitly. Do not just say "done"; spell out each click, because the sources only appear after this flow is completed:

1. Go to the ClickHouse Cloud console and open the target service.
2. In the left-hand menu, select ClickStack.
3. Click through to Getting Started and follow the onboarding flow.
4. Ignore any prompt that asks you to set up or configure a collector / start ingestion. You have already done that in the steps above. Skip straight past those screens (click through / "Next") to source detection. Re-running the console's collector setup is unnecessary and only causes confusion.
5. The data sources are auto-detected: logs, traces, and metrics for the otel database are picked up automatically, and your data appears in the Search and dashboard views.

The direct link is https://console.clickhouse.cloud/services/<SERVICE_ID>/clickstack (substitute $SERVICE_ID).

If source detection shows nothing, the service almost certainly idle-suspended between the data send and the console step. Re-run the SELECT 1 wake query above for the user, then have them re-run the detection, rather than leaving them to debug an opaque failure.

Step 9: Summarize and hand off (without echoing secrets)

Print a summary in roughly this format. Note the token is referenced, not printed, the SQL password is not shown at all, and the collector keeps running until the user stops it. Adjust the "how to stop" line to the deploy mode they chose.

✅ ClickStack is set up and ingesting telemetry for service <SERVICE_NAME> (<SERVICE_ID>).
   Complete onboarding in the console (Step 8) to auto-detect the sources and see your data.

Collector
  ▸ New local collector via <Docker Compose | docker run>  (or: configured your existing collector)
  ▸ Send OTLP gRPC to: localhost:4317
  ▸ Send OTLP HTTP to: localhost:4318
  ▸ Health check:      http://localhost:13133/   (local collector only)
  ▸ Required header:   authorization: <OTLP token>
       (retrieve with:  grep OTLP_AUTH_TOKEN <WORKDIR>/collector.env)

ClickHouse target
  ▸ Endpoint: <CLICKHOUSE_ENDPOINT>
  ▸ SQL user: hyperdx_ingest   (password in <WORKDIR>/collector.env, mode 0600)
  ▸ Database: otel

Finish in the ClickHouse Cloud console:
  ▸ Open the service, select ClickStack in the left menu, then Getting Started,
    and complete onboarding to auto-detect sources.
  ▸ https://console.clickhouse.cloud/services/<SERVICE_ID>/clickstack

Then tell the user, in your own words, that:

1. All secrets live in <WORKDIR>/collector.env (mode 0600). Nothing sensitive was pasted into this chat or passed on a docker run command line.
2. The collector keeps running until they stop it. For Compose: cd <WORKDIR> && docker compose down stops it, docker compose up -d brings it back. For individual Docker: docker stop clickstack-otel-collector and docker start clickstack-otel-collector.
3. Any application, SDK, or agent on this host can now send OTLP to localhost:4317 (gRPC) or localhost:4318 (HTTP) with the authorization header from the env file.
4. The ClickHouse Cloud service idle-suspends. If ClickStack later shows no recent data, the service may simply be asleep; sending new telemetry or running any query wakes it.

Cleanup (only if the user explicitly asks)

# Docker Compose deployment:
( cd "$WORKDIR" && docker compose down )

# Individual Docker deployment:
docker rm -f clickstack-otel-collector
docker network rm clickstack-net 2>/dev/null || true

# Either deployment, remove the ingest user:
clickhousectl cloud service query --id "$SERVICE_ID" --query "DROP USER IF EXISTS hyperdx_ingest"

# Optionally remove the local files once they are no longer needed:
# rm -f "$WORKDIR/collector.env" "$WORKDIR/svc.json" "$WORKDIR/docker-compose.yaml"

Do not drop the otel database: it contains telemetry the user may want to retain.