diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index c208ac9..580105d 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -134,6 +134,11 @@ When the container is launched it will run the script at `/app/prestart.sh` befo
 
 
 ## Environmental Variables
+### `OTEL_ENABLED`
+
+Defaults to `false`. When set to `true`, the container launches the application wrapped with `opentelemetry-instrument`, enabling auto-instrumentation at runtime. The core packages `opentelemetry-distro` and `opentelemetry-exporter-otlp` are always pre-installed in the image.
+
+**Framework-specific instrumentation packages are not pre-installed.** Because `opentelemetry-bootstrap` installs packages based on what is already present in the environment, it is intentionally left out of this base image — running it here would have no useful effect. Instead, you should add instrumentation in your own Dockerfile.
 
 ### `PORT`
 
diff --git a/assets/start.sh b/assets/start.sh
index 29292db..4466448 100644
--- a/assets/start.sh
+++ b/assets/start.sh
@@ -29,8 +29,16 @@ fi
 # End of tiangolo/uvicorn-gunicorn-docker block
 #
 
+
+if [[ $OTEL_ENABLED == "true" ]]; then
+  OTEL_CMD="opentelemetry-instrument"
+  echo "OpenTelemetry auto-instrumentation enabled"
+else
+  OTEL_CMD=""
+fi
+
 if [[ $RELOAD == "true" ]]; then
-    exec python -m uvicorn "$APP_MODULE" --host 0.0.0.0 --port ${PORT:-80} --log-level "${LOG_LEVEL:-info}" $UVICORN_EXTRA_FLAGS --reload
+    exec $OTEL_CMD python -m uvicorn "$APP_MODULE" --host 0.0.0.0 --port ${PORT:-80} --log-level "${LOG_LEVEL:-info}" $UVICORN_EXTRA_FLAGS --reload
 else
-    exec python -m uvicorn "$APP_MODULE" --host 0.0.0.0 --port ${PORT:-80} --log-level "${LOG_LEVEL:-info}" $UVICORN_EXTRA_FLAGS
+    exec $OTEL_CMD python -m uvicorn "$APP_MODULE" --host 0.0.0.0 --port ${PORT:-80} --log-level "${LOG_LEVEL:-info}" $UVICORN_EXTRA_FLAGS
 fi
diff --git a/dockerfile b/dockerfile
index 32e517b..c7d950f 100644
--- a/dockerfile
+++ b/dockerfile
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 ARG python_version=3.9
 ARG build_target=$python_version
 ARG publish_target=$python_version
+ARG OTEL_ENABLED=false
 
 FROM python:$build_target as Builder
 
@@ -25,6 +26,10 @@ RUN pip install $package==$package_version
 RUN bash -c 'if [[ "$TARGETPLATFORM" == "linux/arm/v7" ]] ; then pip install uvicorn==$package_version websockets>=10.0 httptools>=0.4.0 uvloop>=0.14.0,!=0.15.0,!=0.15.1 python-dotenv>=0.13 PyYAML>=5.1 ; fi'
 RUN bash -c 'if [[ "$TARGETPLATFORM" != "linux/arm/v7" ]] ; then pip install uvicorn[standard]==$package_version ; fi'
 
+# Always install OpenTelemetry packages (instrumentation is controlled at runtime via OTEL_ENABLED).
+# Bootstrap is intentionally excluded - users should install their own instrumentation packages
+# (e.g. opentelemetry-instrumentation-fastapi) or run opentelemetry-bootstrap in their own Dockerfile.
+RUN pip install --no-cache-dir opentelemetry-distro opentelemetry-exporter-otlp
 
 
 
@@ -37,15 +42,20 @@ ARG python_version
 ARG package
 ARG maintainer=""
 ARG TARGETPLATFORM=""
+ARG OTEL_ENABLED=false
 LABEL python=$python_version
 LABEL package=$package
 LABEL maintainer=$maintainer
+LABEL otel_enabled=$OTEL_ENABLED
 LABEL org.opencontainers.image.description="python:$publish_target $package:$package_version $TARGETPLATFORM"
 
 
 # Copy all of the python files built in the Builder container into this smaller container.
 COPY --from=Builder /usr/local/lib/python$python_version /usr/local/lib/python$python_version
 
+# Copy binaries (e.g. opentelemetry-instrument) installed by pip in the Builder stage.
+COPY --from=Builder /usr/local/bin /usr/local/bin
+
 # Startup Script
 COPY ./assets/start.sh /start.sh
 RUN chmod +x /start.sh