A method and system for packet-optical in-band telemetry (POINT) that may be used in a packet-optical network is disclosed herein. An intermediate POINT device may receive a packet including at least a header and a payload at a packet layer. The POINT device may read intent information from the header, and the intent information may indicate a type of telemetry data to be collected. The POINT device may translate the intent information from the packet layer to generate a device-specific action in an optical layer to the type of telemetry data indicated by the intent. The POINT device may execute the device-specific action in the optical layer to generate a response corresponding to the intent, associate the response with the intent, and encode the response in the packet layer for downstream data forwarding.