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To observe outgoing HTTP calls in Laravel, instrument the client that actually sends them: use Laravel’s HTTP client middleware or lifecycle events for calls made through Http, and Guzzle middleware or transport statistics for separately constructed Guzzle clients. Add logs, metrics, and tracing as distinct layers, and inventory SDK-created clients before claiming coverage of every request.
Start by defining which clients you need to cover
Laravel’s HTTP client is powered by Guzzle, but Laravel’s hooks apply to calls made through its HTTP client—not automatically to every Guzzle client in the process. Requests sent through the Http facade can use Laravel middleware, lifecycle events, and request options. A separately constructed GuzzleHttpClient, or an SDK with its own client, needs instrumentation in that client’s Guzzle handler stack.
Inventory the call paths before choosing an implementation. Include application code, packages and SDKs, and any client factories. Coverage is a property of the clients and code paths you have instrumented, not a guarantee supplied by installing a logger.
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Laravel HTTP client middleware
For one Laravel HTTP client request, the documented withRequestMiddleware and withResponseMiddleware methods let you inspect or modify the request and response. For application-wide behavior, Laravel documents globalRequestMiddleware and globalResponseMiddleware, typically registered in AppServiceProvider::boot. Check the documentation for the Laravel version installed in your application because APIs and behavior are version-sensitive.
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Middleware is useful when you want logic close to the HTTP exchange—for example, adding a safe correlation header or recording request and response details. It does not by itself solve timing, redaction, metric aggregation, or coverage of clients outside Laravel’s HTTP client.
Laravel HTTP client lifecycle events
Laravel also exposes RequestSending, ResponseReceived, and ConnectionFailed events. As Laravel’s HTTP Client documentation puts it: “The RequestSending event is fired prior to a request being sent, while the ResponseReceived event is fired after a response is received for a given request.” The documentation describes ConnectionFailed for a request that receives no response.
Use event listeners when centralized, event-driven handling fits your application. The event stream distinguishes a sent request, a received response, and a connection failure; do not treat an HTTP error status as the same thing as a transport failure. Event timing markers alone are not a complete duration-measurement design: correlate each event with the right request and measure safely when requests overlap or retry.
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For direct Guzzle clients, add middleware to the Guzzle handler stack used by those clients. Guzzle middleware wraps the handler: it can inspect a request before handing it downstream and examine the resulting response or error. See the official Guzzle handlers and middleware documentation.
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Be careful when replacing or customizing a handler stack. Some Guzzle request options depend on supporting middleware; the Guzzle documentation warns that those options will not work if the required middleware is missing. The selected handler also affects which transfer details are available. Guzzle documents the on_stats request option for transfer statistics, but consult the documentation matching your installed Guzzle version before depending on particular fields.
Decide what a useful request record contains
A consistent, bounded record makes outbound-call data easier to search and aggregate. A practical starting point is:
- HTTP method and a normalized service or host name.
- A route template, when available, rather than a URL containing user-specific identifiers.
- Response status, or a coarse failure category when no response was received.
- Elapsed duration measured for the specific attempt.
- Retry attempt number, if retries are enabled.
- A trace or correlation identifier that connects the call to the work that initiated it.
Do not use full URLs with unique path values or arbitrary query strings as metric labels. Such high-cardinality labels can make metrics less useful and more expensive to retain. Keep diagnostic detail in appropriately protected logs instead, and omit or redact authorization headers, cookies, query parameters, and request or response bodies unless you have a clear, safe reason to capture them.
Retries need explicit treatment: one logical operation may produce multiple network attempts. Record attempts distinctly or otherwise make retry behavior visible, so a final success does not hide preceding failures and durations are not accidentally combined.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Keep logs, metrics, and traces distinct
- Logs capture event-level context that can help diagnose a particular call, such as its service, status or failure category, and retry attempt.
- Metrics aggregate counts and latency across calls. Use bounded labels such as service, method, and status class rather than request-specific values.
- Traces connect an outbound HTTP call to the application work that triggered it, across service boundaries when context propagation is configured.
OpenTelemetry’s PHP documentation lists traces, metrics, and logs as stable components as of 2026. Its PHP propagation documentation describes W3C Trace Context propagation through outgoing HTTP instrumentation packages. Laravel and Guzzle do not automatically become a complete OpenTelemetry deployment just by being present: choose instrumentation and exporters compatible with your PHP, Laravel, and Guzzle versions, configure them for your environment, and verify the emitted data.
The OpenTelemetry Laravel quickstart is a project example with version-specific dependency notes, not a compatibility guarantee for every deployment. Confirm package support and exporter configuration against the releases you intend to use.
Use Telescope for request inspection, not as a full telemetry design
Laravel Telescope’s HTTP Client Watcher records outgoing HTTP client requests and can help inspect calls during debugging or development. Its recording role is different from a designed metrics pipeline or distributed-tracing setup. Suitability for production, retention, storage cost, sampling, and coverage depend on your application’s configuration; the watcher alone does not establish those properties.
Validate the coverage and the data
Test the instrumentation in the same kinds of client paths that run in your application. Laravel’s HTTP Client documentation describes request fakes, response inspection, and preventing stray requests, which can support controlled tests.
Quick Recap
- Confirm a successful response produces the expected request and response record.
- Check that an HTTP error response is recorded with its status and is not mistaken for a connection failure.
- Simulate a connection failure and verify it is visible even though no response arrived.
- Exercise a retry and confirm attempts and durations remain distinguishable.
- Send a request with sensitive headers and verify credentials and private payloads are not exposed.
- Run overlapping requests and ensure each duration is associated with the correct request; avoid a single mutable global start-time value.
- Check that metric labels remain bounded and that direct Guzzle and SDK-created clients are covered where required.
- For tracing, make a real outbound request in the target runtime and verify context propagation and exported telemetry.
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