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The health check extension provides a lightweight HTTP endpoint that confirms whether the OpenTelemetry Collector process is up and responding. When enabled, the endpoint returns a 200 OK and a small JSON payload with status, upSince, and uptime — making it ideal for monitoring, load balancer probes, and orchestration systems.
The image has a blue gradient background with the text "Collector Diagnostics" and "Extensions: healthcheck" in white, along with a copyright notice for KodeKloud.

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Enable the health_check extension

Add the health_check extension to your collector configuration and bind it to the default address and port (0.0.0.0:13133):

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Verify the endpoint with curl

A GET request to / returns HTTP 200 and a JSON body describing server availability:
The extension listens by default on port 13133. You can use this endpoint in health checks, load balancer probes, or external orchestration tools to decide rollout and restart behavior.

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Kubernetes: map to liveness and readiness probes

Use the health endpoint for Kubernetes liveness and readiness checks so the platform can detect and recover from unhealthy collector instances:
Probes summary:
Probe typePurposeExample
LivenessRestart container when collector is unresponsivelivenessProbe YAML above
ReadinessExclude pod from service load balancer while starting/rehydratingreadinessProbe YAML above

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Docker / Docker Compose

For Docker or Docker Compose deployments, expose the collector port so external systems (host, orchestrator, CI) can poll the endpoint:
External systems can poll http://<host>:13133/ for a quick health signal and use the 200 OK response for rollout, restart, or monitoring decisions.

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When to use the healthcheck extension

  • Integrate with Kubernetes probes (liveness & readiness).
  • Configure load balancer health checks to avoid routing traffic to an unavailable collector.
  • Use in CI/CD pipelines or deployment scripts to gate rollouts on collector availability.
  • Provide a simple browser-accessible endpoint for quick diagnostic checks.

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