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Grafana Cloud exposes a managed OTLP gateway that accepts OpenTelemetry logs natively over OTLP/HTTP, so MCP Manager can send logs directly with no intermediate collector. Grafana Cloud converts incoming OTLP logs into Loki, where you query them with LogQL. This guide covers the Grafana Cloud-specific details. For what MCP Manager sends, how forwarding behaves, who can configure it, and general troubleshooting, see Export to SIEM.
Configuring log forwarding requires the Manage OpenTelemetry collector capability and an Enterprise plan that includes the OpenTelemetry integration. If you do not see the Logging → Integrations panel, see Who can set up log export.

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What you’ll need

  • A Grafana Cloud stack.
  • Your stack’s numeric instance ID and OTLP gateway URL (both shown in the Grafana Cloud portal).
  • A Cloud Access Policy token scoped with logs:write — not a Grafana API or service-account token.
  • Access to MCP Manager with the Manage OpenTelemetry collector capability.

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Step 1: Find your OTLP gateway URL and instance ID

In the Grafana Cloud portal, select your stack and open the OpenTelemetry (“Configure”) panel. It shows your OTLP gateway URL and your numeric instance ID. The gateway URL has the shape: 
https://otlp-gateway-<zone>.grafana.net/otlp
Your <zone> is region-specific, for example prod-us-east-0 or prod-eu-west-0. The gateway is rooted at /otlp, so the logs endpoint you paste into MCP Manager is that base plus /v1/logs, on port 443: 
https://otlp-gateway-<zone>.grafana.net/otlp/v1/logs
Include the /otlp segment. Grafana Cloud’s logs path is /otlp/v1/logs, not /v1/logs — and because MCP Manager appends nothing to the URL, pasting .../v1/logs without the /otlp prefix returns a 404 on every export. This is by far the most common Grafana Cloud setup mistake.

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Step 2: Create an access-policy token with logs:write

In the Grafana Cloud portal, go to Access Policies, create (or reuse) a policy that includes the logs:write scope, and generate a token under it. Use this Cloud Access Policy token — a Grafana API key or service-account token will not authenticate against the OTLP gateway.

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Step 3: Build the Basic auth header value

Grafana Cloud’s OTLP gateway uses HTTP Basic authentication, where the credentials are your instance ID and access-policy token joined with a colon and base64-encoded. Build the value yourself:
terminal
printf '%s' '<instance-id>:<access-policy-token>' | base64
The header value you give MCP Manager is the word Basic, a space, and that encoded string: 
Basic <base64 of instance-id:access-policy-token>

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Step 4: Connect MCP Manager to Grafana Cloud

1

Open the OpenTelemetry collector panel

In MCP Manager, go to Logs → Integrations and find the OpenTelemetry collector panel.
2

Enter the collector URL

In Collector URL, paste your full logs endpoint including the /otlp prefix, for example https://otlp-gateway-prod-us-east-0.grafana.net/otlp/v1/logs.
3

Add the Authorization request header

Under Request headers, add one header:
  • Field name: Authorization
  • Field value: Basic <base64 of instance-id:access-policy-token> from Step 3
4

Save the configuration

Select Save. MCP Manager stores the configuration and encrypts the header value. Saving confirms storage only — it does not confirm delivery.

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Step 5: Find your logs in Loki

Grafana Cloud routes OTLP logs into Loki, so query them with LogQL in Grafana Explore (or the Logs Drilldown app). The OTLP service.name resource attribute becomes the service_name label, so filter MCP Manager’s logs with: 
{service_name="mcp-manager"}
Use the exact service.name shown in MCP Manager’s Filter your logs by panel. To discover available labels, open the label browser in Grafana Explore.

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Troubleshooting

The /otlp prefix is almost certainly missing. The logs endpoint is https://otlp-gateway-<zone>.grafana.net/otlp/v1/logs — MCP Manager appends nothing, so the URL must include /otlp/v1/logs in full.
The instance-id:access-policy-token pair is wrong or was not base64-encoded. Rebuild the value with printf '%s' '<instance-id>:<token>' | base64 and confirm the header is Basic <encoded> (a single Basic prefix). Also confirm you used a Cloud Access Policy token with logs:write, not a Grafana API or service-account token.
Make sure you are querying Loki, not Prometheus. MCP Manager sends logs, which land in Loki; querying the Prometheus (metrics) datasource returns nothing and looks identical to logs not arriving. Switch the datasource selector in Explore to your Loki datasource and query {service_name="mcp-manager"}.
From any machine with outbound HTTPS access:
terminal
curl -v -X POST "https://otlp-gateway-<zone>.grafana.net/otlp/v1/logs" \
  -H "Authorization: Basic <base64>" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{}'
A 2xx confirms the URL and credentials are valid; 401 means the instance-id:token pair is wrong or not base64-encoded; 404 almost always means the /otlp prefix was omitted; 400 means a malformed body (expected for this empty probe once the URL and auth are correct).

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Further reading

Datadog

The next per-vendor guide — per-site endpoint and the dd-api-key header.

Export to SIEM

What MCP Manager sends, how forwarding behaves, and general troubleshooting.

Self-hosted Collector

Route through your own collector to filter, enrich, or fan out.

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External sources

Grafana Cloud OTLP overview

Grafana’s reference for native OTLP ingest into Loki, Mimir, and Tempo.

Send data to the OTLP endpoint

The gateway URL shape and the instance-ID/token Basic auth construction.

Create access policies and tokens

Generate the Cloud Access Policy token with the logs:write scope.

OTLP specification

The protocol spec, including the success and partial-success response contract.