Resources and Semantic Conventions

Describe the source once

A resource is a set of attributes describing the entity producing telemetry: service.name, service.version, deployment.environment.name, host, container, cloud and Kubernetes attributes. Set them through OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES or resource detectors, and every span, metric and log carries them. Semantic conventions define standard names for common attributes (HTTP, databases, messaging, RPC, exceptions) so backends and teams interpret data the same way.

Setting resource attributes

Environment variables read by OpenTelemetry SDKs.

export OTEL_SERVICE_NAME=checkout
export OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES="service.version=3.4.0,deployment.environment.name=prod,service.namespace=shop"

# HTTP server span attributes defined by the semantic conventions include, for example:
#   http.request.method, url.path, http.route, http.response.status_code, server.address

Always set service.version

Comparing error rates between versions is one of the fastest ways to spot a bad deployment.

त्वरित जाँच: Which attribute belongs on the resource rather than individual spans?

• app.cart.items
• http.response.status_code
• service.name
• exception.message