Instrument a new feature with OpenTelemetry

Use this skill whenever you are about to write — or have just finished writing — a new business operation in the user's project. A "new feature" is anything a human operator would want to find later when something looks wrong: a new HTTP route, RPC handler, GraphQL resolver, background job, queue consumer, cron task, CLI subcommand, agent tool, scheduled workflow, or any module-level function that represents a meaningful step in a user-facing flow.

Adding code that is just plumbing — a pure helper, a type, a config — does not trigger this skill. Adding code that takes a request in, does work, and produces a side effect or response does.

Step 0 — Confirm OTel is already wired

Before instrumenting, look for an existing bootstrap. Common signs: a telemetry.ts / observability.ts / instrumentation.ts / init_observability() module, @vercel/otel registerOTel(...), NodeSDK/sdk-node setup, Python LoggerProvider + OTLPLogExporter, superlogHeaders(...), or an inlined https://intake.superlog.sh endpoint with an sl_public_ token.

If you cannot find a bootstrap, do not invent one inside the new feature file. Tell the user the project still needs OTel wiring and that this is the job of the superlog-onboard skill — then continue with the feature implementation, leaving a single brief TODO at the bootstrap site (not on every span/metric/log call site). Do not block on this.

If a bootstrap exists, read the applicable companion skill before writing code: