Essential.OpenTelemetry.Exporter.ColoredConsole 1.0.4

Essential .NET OpenTelemetry Colored Console Exporter

Enhanced console exporter for OpenTelemetry .NET with color-coded formatting for logs, traces, and metrics.

This exporter is part of the Essential .NET OpenTelemetry project, which provides guidance, additional exporters, and extensions for .NET OpenTelemetry implementations.

Features

• Color-coded output: Different colors for different log levels, trace events, and metrics
• Structured logging support: Displays structured log data in a readable format
• OpenTelemetry standard compliance: Works seamlessly with the OpenTelemetry SDK
• Multi-framework support: Compatible with currently supported .NET versions

Installation

Install the required NuGet packages via dotnet or another package manager:

dotnet add package OpenTelemetry.Extensions.Hosting
dotnet add package Essential.OpenTelemetry.Exporter.ColoredConsole

Getting started with basic logging

For a standard .NET host application, add the following using statements:

using Essential.OpenTelemetry;
using Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Logging;

Then clear the default loggers, and configure OpenTelemetry with the colored console exporter:

builder.Logging.ClearProviders();
builder.Services.AddOpenTelemetry()
    .WithLogging(logging =>
    {
        logging.AddColoredConsoleExporter();
    });

Automatic instrumentation - ASP.NET

Automatic instrumentation is available for various components, e.g. for an ASP.NET application, following on from the basic setup, above:

dotnet add package OpenTelemetry.Instrumentation.AspNetCore

Then add the additional using statements:

using OpenTelemetry.Trace;
using OpenTelemetry.Metrics;

And configure the colored console exporter along with the automatic instrumentation for traces and metrics:

builder.Logging.ClearProviders();
builder.Services.AddOpenTelemetry()
    .WithLogging(logging =>
    {
        logging.AddColoredConsoleExporter();
    })
    .WithTracing(tracing =>
    {
        tracing.AddAspNetCoreInstrumentation().AddColoredConsoleExporter();
    })
    .WithMetrics(metrics =>
    {
        metrics
            .AddAspNetCoreInstrumentation()
            .AddView(instrument =>
                instrument.Name.StartsWith("http.server.request", StringComparison.Ordinal)
                    ? null
                    : MetricStreamConfiguration.Drop
            )
            .AddColoredConsoleExporter(options => { }, exportIntervalMilliseconds: 60_000);
    });

See the full project for a working example.

Copyright

Essential.OpenTelemetry ColoredConsole Exporter - Color-coded formatting for OpenTelemetry logs, traces, and metrics. Copyright (C) 2026 Gryphon Technology Pty Ltd

This library is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Lesser General Public License and GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License and GNU General Public License along with this library. If not, see https://www.gnu.org/licenses/.