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observability-edot-python-migrate

Migrate a Python application from the classic Elastic APM Python agent to the EDOT Python agent. Use when switching from elastic-apm to elastic-opentelemetry.

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1 Oct 2026
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elastic/agent-skills
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Skill instructions

Rendered from the published SKILL.md, 33 lines.

EDOT Python Migration

Read the migration guide before making changes:

Guidelines

  1. Remove ALL classic APM references: elastic-apm from requirements, ElasticAPM(app) / elasticapm.contrib.* from application code, app.config['ELASTIC_APM'] blocks, and all ELASTIC_APM_* env vars
  2. Install elastic-opentelemetry via pip (add to requirements.txt or equivalent)
  3. Run edot-bootstrap --action=install during image build to install auto-instrumentation packages for detected libraries
  4. Wrap the application entrypoint with opentelemetry-instrument — e.g. opentelemetry-instrument gunicorn app:app. Without this, no telemetry is collected
  5. Set exactly three required environment variables:
    • OTEL_SERVICE_NAME (replaces ELASTIC_APM_SERVICE_NAME)
    • OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT — must be the managed OTLP endpoint or EDOT Collector URL. Do NOT reuse the old ELASTIC_APM_SERVER_URL value. Never use an APM Server URL (no apm-server, no :8200, no /intake/v2/events)
    • OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS — "Authorization=ApiKey <key>" or "Authorization=Bearer <token>" (replaces ELASTIC_APM_SECRET_TOKEN)
  6. Do NOT set OTEL_TRACES_EXPORTER, OTEL_METRICS_EXPORTER, or OTEL_LOGS_EXPORTER — the defaults are already correct
  7. Never run both classic elastic-apm and EDOT on the same application

Examples

See the EDOT Python migration guide for complete examples.