After setting up the Otel collector agent, follow the steps below to instrument your Go Application
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### Step 1: Install OpenTelemetry Dependencies
Dependencies related to OpenTelemetry exporter and SDK have to be installed first.

Run the below commands after navigating to the application source folder:
```bash
go get go.opentelemetry.io/otel \
  go.opentelemetry.io/otel/trace \
  go.opentelemetry.io/otel/sdk \
  go.opentelemetry.io/contrib/instrumentation/github.com/gin-gonic/gin/otelgin \
  go.opentelemetry.io/otel/exporters/otlp/otlptrace \
  go.opentelemetry.io/otel/exporters/otlp/otlptrace/otlptracegrpc
```

**Note:** We are assuming you are using gin request router. If you are using other request routers, check out the [corresponding package](https://signoz.io/docs/instrumentation/golang/#request-routers).
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### Step 2: Declare environment variables for configuring OpenTelemetry
Declare the following global variables in **`main.go`** which we will use to configure OpenTelemetry:
```bash
 var (
     serviceName  = os.Getenv("SERVICE_NAME")
     collectorURL = os.Getenv("OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT")
     insecure     = os.Getenv("INSECURE_MODE")
 )
```
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### Step 3: Instrument your Go application 
To configure your application to send data we will need a function to initialize OpenTelemetry. Add the following snippet of code in your **`main.go`** file.

```bash
     
 import (
     .....

     "google.golang.org/grpc/credentials"
     "github.com/gin-gonic/gin"
     "go.opentelemetry.io/otel"
     "go.opentelemetry.io/otel/attribute"
     "go.opentelemetry.io/otel/exporters/otlp/otlptrace"
     "go.opentelemetry.io/otel/exporters/otlp/otlptrace/otlptracegrpc"

     "go.opentelemetry.io/otel/sdk/resource"
     sdktrace "go.opentelemetry.io/otel/sdk/trace"
 )

 func initTracer() func(context.Context) error {

     var secureOption otlptracegrpc.Option

     if strings.ToLower(insecure) == "false" || insecure == "0" || strings.ToLower(insecure) == "f" {
         secureOption = otlptracegrpc.WithTLSCredentials(credentials.NewClientTLSFromCert(nil, ""))
     } else {
         secureOption = otlptracegrpc.WithInsecure()
     }

     exporter, err := otlptrace.New(
         context.Background(),
         otlptracegrpc.NewClient(
             secureOption,
             otlptracegrpc.WithEndpoint(collectorURL),
         ),
     )

     if err != nil {
         log.Fatalf("Failed to create exporter: %v", err)
     }
     resources, err := resource.New(
         context.Background(),
         resource.WithAttributes(
             attribute.String("service.name", serviceName),
             attribute.String("library.language", "go"),
         ),
     )
     if err != nil {
         log.Fatalf("Could not set resources: %v", err)
     }

     otel.SetTracerProvider(
         sdktrace.NewTracerProvider(
             sdktrace.WithSampler(sdktrace.AlwaysSample()),
             sdktrace.WithBatcher(exporter),
             sdktrace.WithResource(resources),
         ),
     )
     return exporter.Shutdown
 }
```
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### Step 4: Initialise the tracer in **`main.go`**
Modify the main function to initialise the tracer in **`main.go`**. Initiate the tracer at the very beginning of our main function.
```bash
func main() {
    cleanup := initTracer()
    defer cleanup(context.Background())

    ......
}
```
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### Step 5: Add the OpenTelemetry Gin middleware
Configure Gin to use the middleware by adding the following lines in **`main.go`**
```bash
import (
    ....
  "go.opentelemetry.io/contrib/instrumentation/github.com/gin-gonic/gin/otelgin"
)

func main() {
    ......
    r := gin.Default()
    r.Use(otelgin.Middleware(serviceName))
    ......
}
```


