---
id: opentelemetry-api
version: "1.44.0"
license: Apache-2.0
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: active
---

# opentelemetry-api — OpenTelemetry Python API

License: permissive · Maintenance: active · Popularity: top 100 on PyPI

## Install

pip install opentelemetry-api
uv add opentelemetry-api
poetry add opentelemetry-api

## Description

# OpenTelemetry Python
[![Slack](https://img.shields.io/badge/slack-@cncf/otel/python-brightgreen.svg?logo=slack)](https://cloud-native.slack.com/archives/C01PD4HUVBL)
[![Build Status](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-python/actions/workflows/ci.yml/badge.svg?branch=main)](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-python/actions/workflows/ci.yml)
[![Minimum Python Version](https://img.shields.io/badge/python-3.10+-blue.svg)](https://www.python.org/downloads/)
[![Release](https://img.shields.io/github/v/release/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-python?include_prereleases&style=)](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-python/releases/)
[![Read the Docs](https://readthedocs.org/projects/opentelemetry-python/badge/?version=latest)](https://opentelemetry-python.readthedocs.io/en/latest/)
[![OpenSSF Best Practices](https://www.bestpractices.dev/projects/11060/badge)](https://www.bestpractices.dev/projects/11060)

## Project Status

See the [OpenTelemetry Instrumentation for Python](https://opentelemetry.io/docs/instrumentation/python/#status-and-releases).

| Signal  | Status       | Project |
| ------- | ------------ | ------- |
| Traces  | Stable       |...

## AI interpretation — verify before relying

Provides abstract API classes and no-op implementations for instrumenting Python applications with distributed tracing, metrics, and logging following the OpenTelemetry specification.

Verdict: Production-stable API package (1.44.0) with active maintenance, zero known vulnerabilities, and minimal dependencies. Designed as the specification-compliant foundation for telemetry instrumentation; libraries should depend on this, while applications choose the SDK. Permissive licensing and broad Python version support (3.10–3.14) make it a safe foundational choice.

[View on SkillFed](https://skillfed.io/packages/opentelemetry-api) · [View on PyPI](https://pypi.org/project/opentelemetry-api/)