opentelemetry-instrumentation-mysqlclient

What it is and what it does

This package integrates OpenTelemetry tracing into mysqlclient, the pure-Python MySQL client library. When installed and initialized, it automatically wraps database connections to emit span data for each SQL query executed, including timing, query text, and connection details. This allows you to see database activity in your distributed tracing system without modifying application code that uses mysqlclient.

The instrumentation builds on OpenTelemetry's dbapi instrumentation layer, which provides a standardized approach to database tracing. It requires Python 3.10 or later and depends on opentelemetry-api, opentelemetry-instrumentation, and opentelemetry-instrumentation-dbapi. The package is in beta status (0.65b0) but actively maintained, with recent releases and no known security vulnerabilities.

Use it for:

• Trace database queries in a distributed system to identify slow or problematic SQL execution
• Monitor MySQL connection pool usage and query latency across microservices
• Correlate database activity with application logs and metrics in a centralized observability platform
• Debug performance issues by seeing which queries run during a specific request or transaction
• Collect database metrics for SLO monitoring and alerting on query performance

Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying

Adds OpenTelemetry tracing instrumentation to mysqlclient database connections, automatically capturing SQL queries and performance metrics.

Yes, if you are already using OpenTelemetry in your application and need visibility into mysqlclient database calls. The low install friction, active maintenance, permissive license, and zero known vulnerabilities make it a straightforward addition to an observability stack. Not necessary if you don't use OpenTelemetry or don't need database-level tracing.

Install

opentelemetry-instrumentation-mysqlclient on PyPI

pip install opentelemetry-instrumentation-mysqlclient

uv add opentelemetry-instrumentation-mysqlclient

poetry add opentelemetry-instrumentation-mysqlclient

Installing opentelemetry-instrumentation-mysqlclient

Before you install

Low install friction with a pure-Python wheel. Actively maintained as of 2026-08-14 with recent releases. Depends on three OpenTelemetry core packages (opentelemetry-api, opentelemetry-instrumentation, opentelemetry-instrumentation-dbapi), all part of the same ecosystem.

License in practice

Apache-2.0 permissive license allows use in most commercial and open-source projects without significant restriction.

Quickstart

pip install opentelemetry-instrumentation-mysqlclient

from opentelemetry.instrumentation.mysqlclient import MySQLClientInstrumentor
MySQLClientInstrumentor().instrument()

Requires Python 3.10 or later. Requires an active OpenTelemetry SDK and exporter configured in your application to actually export traces.

Verify before relying

• Whether this instrumentation works with all mysqlclient versions or has specific version constraints
• Performance overhead of instrumentation in production workloads
• Whether automatic instrumentation captures query parameters or only query structure

Package facts

Evidence: opentelemetry_instrumentation_mysqlclient-0.65b0-py3-none-any.whl

Tags

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