> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.depthsai.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Quickstart - Experience depths in 100 seconds

> Start an OTLP/HTTP server with the CLI and send your first signal.

Depths v0.1.1 ships a CLI that boots a local OTLP/HTTP server (FastAPI) ready to receive traces, logs, and metrics at the standard `/v1/*` endpoints.

## Install (OS-agnostic)

```bash theme={null}
# Base install, server accepts OTLP JSON bodies
pip install depths

# If you want to accept OTLP protobuf bodies as well
pip install "depths[proto]"
```

## Start the server (OS-agnostic)

```bash theme={null}
# 1) Create an instance with default scaffold (configs, tables, etc.)
depths init 

# 2) Start the uvicorn server for the default instance (binds 0.0.0.0:4318 by default)
depths start
```

Depths is by design multi-tenant at a project level. We define an instance as a particularly configured
logger. Under an instance, you can store telemetry for multiple projects, just that each of them will share the same
configuration for the ingestion server.

After `start`, the server exposes:

* `GET /healthz` (liveness + minimal metrics)
* `POST /v1/traces`  (OTLP/HTTP JSON or protobuf)
* `POST /v1/logs`
* `POST /v1/metrics`
* `GET /api/spans`, `GET /api/logs`, `GET /api/metrics/points`, `GET /api/metrics/hist` (simple read APIs)

## Send your first event

### Option A: point an OTel SDK or Collector at Depths

Set your exporter endpoint to the server:

To update that command for Mintlify's tabbed code blocks, you need to use the platform-specific syntax for setting an environment variable.

Here is the correct Mintlify **`<CodeGroup>`** component:

<CodeGroup>
  ```bash macOS/Linux (Bash/Zsh) theme={null}
  export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=http://localhost:4318
  # or use the signal-specific endpoints if you prefer:
  # http://localhost:4318/v1/traces
  # http://localhost:4318/v1/logs
  # http://localhost:4318/v1/metrics
  ```

  ```powershell Windows (PowerShell) theme={null}
  $env:OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT="http://localhost:4318"
  # or use the signal-specific endpoints if you prefer:
  # http://localhost:4318/v1/traces
  # http://localhost:4318/v1/logs
  # http://localhost:4318/v1/metrics
  ```
</CodeGroup>

***

### Option B: send a minimal trace with cURL

Save this as `span.json` in the directory where you ran `depths init`. This is a toy payload:

```json theme={null}
{
  "resourceSpans": [
    {
      "resource": {
        "attributes": [
          { "key": "service.name", "value": { "stringValue": "test-with-curl" } }
        ]
      },
      "scopeSpans": [
        {
          "scope": { "name": "manual-test" },
          "spans": [
            {
              "traceId": "71699b6fe85982c7c8995ea3d9c95df2",
              "spanId": "3c191d03fa8be065",
              "name": "spanitron",
              "kind": 2,
              "droppedAttributesCount": 0,
              "events": [],
              "droppedEventsCount": 0,
              "status": { "code": 1 }
            }
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}
```

Send it to the Depths server:

<CodeGroup>
  ```bash macOS/Linux theme={null}
  curl -i http://localhost:4318/v1/traces \
    -X POST \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -d @span.json
  ```

  ```powershell Windows (PowerShell) theme={null}
  # Use curl.exe in a single line (no backslash for continuation)
  curl.exe -i http://localhost:4318/v1/traces -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d "@span.json"
  ```
</CodeGroup>

## Verify ingestion

First, we can check the health of the server using `status` command.
This command provides a comprehensive single-pane snapshot of the telemetry ingestion server.

```bash theme={null}
depths status
```

We can also take a peak at the most recent rows in our telemetry tables, persisted locally.

```bash theme={null}
# Quick terminal peek at recent rows
depths view --table spans --rows 5
```

## Stop the server

```bash theme={null}
# Clean shutdown
depths stop
```

With that, you have experienced a purely pythonic OTel native telemetry ingestion server.