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Clarify GitLab Observability tier and self-managed setup prerequisites (#146)#153

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simlarsen merged 1 commit into
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fix/gitlab-otel-tier-issue-146
Jun 25, 2026
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Clarify GitLab Observability tier and self-managed setup prerequisites (#146)#153
simlarsen merged 1 commit into
masterfrom
fix/gitlab-otel-tier-issue-146

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Resolves a reader's confusion (#146) about the GitLab CI OpenTelemetry post.

Current GitLab docs (18.1+) list CI/CD pipeline telemetry and GitLab Observability as Free/Premium/Ultimate with Experiment status, so the feature is not Ultimate-only. The older 16.x/17.x implementation that required Ultimate and the observability_features (formerly observability_tracing) flag was reworked, which is the source of the "Ultimate only" impression.

Changes:

  • Added a "Tier and Availability" note stating the current tier/status and explaining the historical Ultimate-only confusion.
  • Added a "Prerequisite: Set Up GitLab Observability First" section covering the GitLab.com UI enablement path and the self-managed backend + Rails console (Observability::GroupO11ySetting) path, clarifying that you do not enable it by editing gitlab.rb.
  • Made the enablement step depend on that prerequisite and added a "no data" troubleshooting note.

Sources: https://docs.gitlab.com/operations/observability/ci_cd/ , https://docs.gitlab.com/operations/observability/observability/ , https://docs.gitlab.com/operations/observability/setup_gitlab_com/ , https://docs.gitlab.com/operations/observability/setup_self_managed/

npm run validate passes.

Resolves #146

@simlarsen simlarsen merged commit 58ac708 into master Jun 25, 2026
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@simlarsen simlarsen deleted the fix/gitlab-otel-tier-issue-146 branch June 25, 2026 20:11
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precision on "How to Instrument GitLab CI Pipelines with OpenTelemetry" article

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