Tracing & monitoringSQL clientBlog
OpenTelemetry

Naming spans and attributes

Span types

Backends may organize spans into categories (or types) depending on the presence of some semantic attributes.

  • http:service_name category for spans representing HTTP requests.
  • db:postgresql for PostgreSQL queries.
  • log:error for log messages with ERROR severity.
  • exception for exceptions.

By making sure that spans have correct semantic attributes, you ensure that they are categorized and grouped properly. Which in turn makes filtering and aggregation simpler.

HTTP

To monitor HTTP clients and servers, use HTTP semantic conventionopen in new window.

A minimal HTTP server example:

SpanName = "GET /users/:id"
SpanKind = "server"

http.method = "GET"
http.route = "/users/:id"

A minimal HTTP client example:

SpanName = "GET /users/:id"
SpanKind = "client"

http.method = "GET"
http.route = "/users/:id"

RPC

To monitor remote procedure calls, use RPC semantic conventionopen in new window.

A minimal RPC server example:

SpanName = "AuthService/Auth"
SpanKind = "server"

rpc.system = "grpc"
rpc.service = "AuthService.Auth"
rpc.method = "Auth"

Database

To monitor database queries and Redis/memcached commands, use DB semantic conventionopen in new window.

A minimal DB example:

SpanName = "pg.query"
SpanKind = "client"

db.system = "postgresql"
db.statement = "SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = 123"

A minimal Redis command example:

SpanName = "GET"
SpanKind = "client"

db.system = "redis"
db.statement = "GET foo"

Messages

To monitor producers and consumers (queues), use Messaging semantic conventionopen in new window.

A minimal producer example:

SpanName = "send MyQueue"
SpanKind = "producer"

messaging.system = "rabbitmq"
messaging.destination = "MyQueue"
messaging.destination_kind = "queue"

A minimal consumer example:

SpanName = "process MyQueue"
SpanKind = "consumer"

messaging.system = "rabbitmq"
messaging.operation = "process"
messaging.destination = "MyQueue"
messaging.destination_kind = "queue"

Functions as a Service

To monitor serverless functions, use FaaS semantic conventionopen in new window.

A minimal server example:

SpanName = "my-lambda-function"
SpanKind = "server"

faas.trigger = "http"
faas.name = "my-lambda-function"

A minimal client example:

SpanName = "my-lambda-function"
SpanKind = "client"

faas.trigger = "http"
faas.invoked_name = "my-lambda-function"

Plain functions

To monitor plain functions, use Source code attributesopen in new window.

A minimal example:

SpanName = "org.FetchUser"

service.name = "myservice"
code.function = "org.FetchUser"
code.filepath = "org/user.go"
code.lineno = "123"

Exceptions

To monitor errors and exceptions, use Exceptions semantic conventionopen in new window and events API.

A minimal example:

EventName = "exception"

exception.type = "*exec.ExitError"
exception.message = "exit status 1"
exception.stack = "<exception stack>"

The same with Go programming language:

span := trace.SpanFromContext(ctx)

span.AddEvent(ctx, "exception",
    // Exception type and message.
    label.String("exception.type", "*exec.ExitError"),
    label.String("exception.message", "exit status 1"),
    label.String("exception.stack", string(runtime.Stack())),
)

Logs

A minimal example:

EventName = "log"

log.severity = "info"
log.message = "something failed"
log.params.key1 = "value1"
log.params.key2 = "value2"

Internal pseudo type

internal is a pseudo type for the spans that can't be categorized using the rules above and that have SpanKind = "internal".

If for some reason you want to move a particular group of spans from internal type, you can either:

  • Add proper type-specific semantic attributes.
  • Change SpanKind to any other valid value (for example, server or client).