Quick start¶

The fastest way to see Akari in action is to run the pre-built forwarder container and point it at an OTLP collector you already have.

1. Run the forwarder (Docker)¶

The forwarder is published as a container image on GHCR:

docker run -d --name akari-forwarder \
  -p 4319:4319/udp \
  -e OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=http://jaeger:4318 \
  ghcr.io/shyim/akari/akari-forwarder:latest

This listens for spans on UDP 4319 and forwards them to the collector at OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT. See Forwarder for the full list of environment variables.

2. Install & enable the extension¶

Install Akari with PIE, the PHP Installer for Extensions:

pie install shyim/akari

Then enable it in your php.ini (see Installation for building from source instead):

extension=akari.so
akari.enable=1
akari.service_name=my-app

3. Generate traffic¶

Restart PHP-FPM or run your CLI app. Traces will appear in your collector within seconds.

Try the full demo stack¶

The repository ships a demo/ directory with a complete Grafana LGTM (Tempo + Loki) stack, a simple PHP app, and a Symfony Demo app — wired up end to end:

cd demo
docker compose up --build

Then open:

Service	URL	Description
Simple PHP demo	http://localhost:8083	PDO, curl, closures, and `Akari\log()`
Symfony Demo	http://localhost:8082	Full Symfony app with route detection
Grafana (LGTM)	http://localhost:3000	Traces (Tempo) + logs (Loki) viewer
Tempo API	http://localhost:3200	Direct Tempo HTTP API

Browse the demo apps to generate traffic, then open Grafana → Explore, select the Tempo datasource, and search by service name to see the span waterfall.

Linking logs to traces

The demo's /logging.php page emits structured records with Akari\log(). Each record carries the request's trace_id and the active span_id, so you can jump straight from a Loki log line to the corresponding trace in Tempo.