[Page feedback]: Units of measurement in metrics.proto not well documented

[StenPetrov]

URL

https://opentelemetry.io/docs/specs/otel/overview/#metric-signal

Description

I'm trying to understand the possible interpretations of a metrics unit.

The documentation page links to metrics.proto, which has this definition:

  // The unit in which the metric value is reported. Follows the format
  // described by https://unitsofmeasure.org/ucum.html.
  string unit = 3;

The metrics unit of measurement is a string

The sample metrics file has "unit": "1", - yes, it's a string, but it's not clear what "1" means in that example.

The link in the proto (https://unitsofmeasure.org/ucum.html) is not valid either

[StenPetrov]

There are no samples with exemplars either

[thompson-tomo]

If you take a look at https://opentelemetry.io/docs/specs/semconv/ there is many realistic definitions of metrics with the unit specified.

[svrnm]

Moved this to semantic conventions repository since this is related to the content of the linked page