Grafana Cloud - Microsandbox

<Note> This recipe ships data emitted by [`msb-metrics`](/observability/msb-metrics). See the msb-metrics page for the flag reference, metric names, and deployment constraints. </Note>

Grafana Cloud exposes a region-specific OTLP gateway at otlp-gateway-prod-<region>.grafana.net. msb-metrics ships directly to it using HTTP/Protobuf and Basic auth.

<Steps> <Step title="Get your OTLP endpoint and credentials"> In the Grafana Cloud admin console, open **My Account → Connections → OpenTelemetry**. Copy three values:

- **Endpoint URL** (looks like
  `https://otlp-gateway-prod-us-east-2.grafana.net/otlp`)
- **Instance ID** (a numeric instance identifier)
- **API token** with scope `metrics:write` (create one if you
  don't already have it)

</Step> <Step title="Build the Basic auth header"> Grafana Cloud's OTLP gateway uses HTTP Basic auth, where the username is your instance ID and the password is the API token.

```sh
GC_ID=...      # numeric instance id
GC_TOKEN=...   # API token with metrics:write
AUTH="Basic $(printf '%s:%s' "$GC_ID" "$GC_TOKEN" | base64 | tr -d '\n')"
```

</Step> <Step title="Run msb-metrics"> ```sh msb-metrics otel \ --endpoint=https://otlp-gateway-prod-us-east-2.grafana.net/otlp/v1/metrics \ --protocol=http \ --header="Authorization=${AUTH}" ```

Sub the region in the URL for yours. If Grafana shows you the base
OTLP URL ending in `/otlp`, append `/v1/metrics` for this HTTP
metrics-only exporter.

</Step> <Step title="Verify"> Boot a sandbox (`msb run alpine`) and open Grafana → **Explore**. Query `microsandbox_cpu_utilization` (PromQL view of the OTel `microsandbox.cpu.utilization` gauge). You should see data within the next flush interval (default 10s). </Step> </Steps>

Production: prefer Grafana Alloy

For long-running deployments, point msb-metrics at a local Grafana Alloy instance instead of the OTLP gateway directly. Alloy handles batching, retries, credential rotation, and buffering through Grafana Cloud hiccups without touching msb-metrics.