[DOCS] Telemetry Configuration Ambiguity: Confusion between Anthropic internal metrics (Statsig) and User-managed OpenTelemetry

Documentation Type

Missing documentation (feature not documented)

Documentation Location

• https://code.claude.com/docs/en/data-usage - https://code.claude.com/docs/en/monitoring-usage

Section/Topic

The configuration of "telemetry" across the "Data usage" and "Monitoring" sections.

Current Documentation

• On https://code.claude.com/docs/en/data-usage, under the "Telemetry services" section: "To opt out of Statsig telemetry, set the DISABLE_TELEMETRY environment variable."
• On https://code.claude.com/docs/en/monitoring-usage, under the "Quick start" section: "1. Enable telemetry: export CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_TELEMETRY=1"

What's Wrong or Missing?

The documentation uses the generic term "Telemetry" to refer to two entirely different systems without making a clear distinction:

1. Anthropic's internal operational telemetry (Statsig): An opt-out system used by Anthropic to track latency and reliability (configured via DISABLE_TELEMETRY).
2. User-managed OpenTelemetry (OTel): An opt-in feature allowing users to export metrics to their own OTLP collectors for monitoring (configured via CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_TELEMETRY).

Users may mistakenly believe that DISABLE_TELEMETRY disables all forms of metrics (including their own configured OTel stack) or that CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_TELEMETRY is required to "help improve Claude." This ambiguity is particularly significant for privacy-conscious enterprise users who need to distinguish between data leaving their network for Anthropic and data staying within their own observability infrastructure.

Suggested Improvement

The documentation should differentiate these features using more specific terminology.

• On https://code.claude.com/docs/en/monitoring-usage, rename the section to "User-Managed OpenTelemetry" or "Custom Observability."
• Update the Quick Start text on https://code.claude.com/docs/en/monitoring-usage to say: "1. Enable OpenTelemetry export: export CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_TELEMETRY=1"
• Add a clarifying note in both locations:

"Note: DISABLE_TELEMETRY applies to Anthropic's internal operational metrics (Statsig), whereas CLAUDE_CODE_ENABLE_TELEMETRY applies to your own OpenTelemetry collector configuration. These are independent systems."

Impact

High - Prevents users from using a feature

Additional Context

• Related documentation on environment variables: https://code.claude.com/docs/en/settings#environment-variables
• Many developers associate "Telemetry" strictly with "phoning home" to the developer, whereas "Monitoring" or "OpenTelemetry" is associated with their own dev-ops stack. Explicitly distinguishing the internal operational tracking from the OTel exporter would align with industry standard naming conventions (e.g., how VS Code distinguishes between "Telemetry" and "Breadcrumbs/Logs").