---
title: Work with Telemetry API
description: This task shows you how to configure Envoy proxies to send access logs with Telemetry API.
weight: 10
keywords: [telemetry,logs]
owner: istio/wg-policies-and-telemetry-maintainers
test: no
---

Telemetry API has been in Istio as a first-class API for quite sometime now.
Previously users had to configure telemetry in the `MeshConfig` section of Istio configuration.

## Get started with Telemetry API

1. Enable access logging

{{< text bash >}}
$ cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -n default -f -
apiVersion: telemetry.istio.io/v1alpha1
kind: Telemetry
metadata:
name: mesh-logging-default
namespace: istio-system
spec:
  accessLogging:
  - providers:
    - name: envoy
EOF
{{< /text >}}

The above example uses the built-in `envoy` access log provider, and we do not configure anything other than default settings.

1. Disable access log for specific workload

You can disable access log for `details` service with the following configuration:

{{< text bash >}}
$ cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -n default -f -
apiVersion: telemetry.istio.io/v1alpha1
kind: Telemetry
metadata:
name: disable-details-logging
namespace: istio-system
spec:
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: details
  accessLogging:
  - providers:
    - name: envoy
    disabled: true
EOF
{{< /text >}}

1. Filter access log with workload mode

You can disable inbound access log for `details` service with the following configuration:

{{< text bash >}}
$ cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -n default -f -
apiVersion: telemetry.istio.io/v1alpha1
kind: Telemetry
metadata:
name: disable-details-logging
namespace: istio-system
spec:
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: details
  accessLogging:
  - providers:
    - name: envoy
    match:
      mode: SERVER
    disabled: true
EOF
{{< /text >}}

1. Filter access log with CEL expression

The following configuration displays access log only when response code is greater or equal to 500:

{{< text bash >}}
$ cat <<EOF | kubectl apply -n default -f -
apiVersion: telemetry.istio.io/v1alpha1
kind: Telemetry
metadata:
name: disable-details-logging
namespace: istio-system
spec:
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: httpbin
  accessLogging:
  - providers:
    - name: envoy
    filter:
      expression: response.code >= 500
EOF
{{< /text >}}

For more information, see [Use expressions for values](/docs/tasks/observability/metrics/customize-metrics/#use-expressions-for-values)

## Work with OpenTelemetry provider

Istio supports sending access logs with [OpenTelemetry](https://opentelemetry.io/) protocol,  as explained [here](/docs/tasks/observability/logs/otel-provider).