Self-Observability

Status: Development

OpenTelemetry SDKs SHOULD emit self-observability (“internal”) telemetry about their own behavior (for example, metrics, logs, and other signals describing the state of processors, exporters, and metric readers) to help operators monitor the health of the OpenTelemetry pipeline itself.

This is closely related to the self-diagnostics guidance in the error handling document.

SDK Self-Observability Metrics

The names, attributes, and values used for SDK self-observability metrics are defined in the OpenTelemetry semantic conventions: SDK Metrics. SDKs that implement self-observability metrics SHOULD follow these conventions.

Self-observability telemetry emitted during SDK startup and shutdown is best-effort, because the SDK that records this telemetry may not yet be initialized or may have already been shut down.

For non-normative implementation advice, see the Self-Observability Supplementary Guidelines.