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| 1 | +# OpenTelemetry Rust Traces |
| 2 | + |
| 3 | +Status: **Work-In-Progress** |
| 4 | + |
| 5 | +## Introduction |
| 6 | + |
| 7 | +This document provides comprehensive guidance on leveraging OpenTelemetry traces |
| 8 | +in Rust applications. |
| 9 | + |
| 10 | +## Instrumentation Guidance |
| 11 | + |
| 12 | +1. **Use OTel API for distributed traces** |
| 13 | + |
| 14 | + Use the `opentelemetry::trace` API to create spans. This supports context |
| 15 | + propagation, span kinds (server/client), links, and remote parents. |
| 16 | + |
| 17 | +2. **Use tracing for logs/events** |
| 18 | + |
| 19 | + Use `tracing::info!`, `tracing::event!`, etc. for structured logging. This |
| 20 | + will be converted to OTel LogRecords via opentelemetry-appender-tracing and |
| 21 | + will be automatically correlated with the current active OTel trace context |
| 22 | + as well. |
| 23 | + |
| 24 | +3. **In-proc contextual enrichment for logs/events** |
| 25 | + |
| 26 | + This is not something OTel has a spec-ed out solution for. This is very |
| 27 | + specific to the logging library (tracing) and its bridge. |
| 28 | + |
| 29 | + Use `tracing::span!` macros to add contextual metadata (e.g., filename) that |
| 30 | + applies to a group of logs. The `otel-appender-tracing` crate will be |
| 31 | + enhanced to extract span attributes and attach them to logs automatically. |
| 32 | + |
| 33 | +4. **If using tracing::span! to create spans** |
| 34 | + |
| 35 | + This is not directly supported by OpenTelemetry. Use the |
| 36 | + `tracing-opentelemetry` bridge to convert tracing spans into OTel spans. |
| 37 | + |
| 38 | + There are some limitations with this approach arising due to `tracing`s lack of support for |
| 39 | + creating Spans following OpenTelemetry specification. Examples include |
| 40 | + - Cannot set remote parent |
| 41 | + - Cannot specify span kind (e.g., server/client) |
| 42 | + - Cannot add span links |
| 43 | + |
| 44 | + The bridge offers extension APIs to support some of these, but they are not |
| 45 | + standard and are maintained outside the OpenTelemetry and Tracing project and |
| 46 | + within the bridge itself. |
| 47 | + |
| 48 | + TODO: Should we make a recommendation about |
| 49 | + avoiding this extension APIs for instrumentation? |
| 50 | + |
| 51 | +5. **Use instrumentation libraries when possible** |
| 52 | + |
| 53 | + If you're manually creating `tracing::span!` and converting to OTel span for |
| 54 | + "edge" spans, consider using official instrumentation libraries where |
| 55 | + available. These handle proper span creation and context propagation using |
| 56 | + the OpenTelemetry API directly. |
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