Semantic conventions for exceptions in logs

Status: Stable

This document defines semantic conventions for recording exceptions on logs emitted through the Logger API.

Important

Existing instrumentations that record exceptions as span events:

SHOULD introduce an environment variable OTEL_SEMCONV_EXCEPTION_SIGNAL_OPT_IN supporting the following values:
- logs - emit exceptions as logs only.
- logs/dup - emit both span events and logs, allowing for a phased rollout.
- The default behavior (in the absence of one of these values) is to continue emitting exceptions as span events (existing behavior).
SHOULD maintain (security patching at a minimum) their existing major version for at least six months after it starts emitting both sets of conventions.
MAY drop the environment variable in their next major version and emit exceptions as logs only.

Even after instrumentations start emitting exceptions only as logs, users will still have the option to route those to span events at the SDK layer.

Recording an exception

Exceptions SHOULD be recorded as attributes on the LogRecord passed to the Logger emit operations. Exceptions MAY be recorded on “logs” or “events” depending on the context.

To encapsulate proper handling of exceptions API authors MAY provide a constructor, RecordException method/extension, or similar helper mechanism on the LogRecord class/structure or wherever it makes the most sense depending on the language runtime.

Attributes

The table below indicates which attributes should be added to the LogRecord and their types.

Attributes:

Key	Requirement Level	Value Type	Description	Example Values
`exception.message`	`Conditionally Required` [1]	string	The exception message. [2]	`Division by zero`; `Can't convert 'int' object to str implicitly`
`exception.type`	`Conditionally Required` [3]	string	The type of the exception (its fully-qualified class name, if applicable). The dynamic type of the exception should be preferred over the static type in languages that support it.	`java.net.ConnectException`; `OSError`
`exception.stacktrace`	`Recommended`	string	A stacktrace as a string in the natural representation for the language runtime. The representation is to be determined and documented by each language SIG.	`Exception in thread "main" java.lang.RuntimeException: Test exception\n at com.example.GenerateTrace.methodB(GenerateTrace.java:13)\n at com.example.GenerateTrace.methodA(GenerateTrace.java:9)\n at com.example.GenerateTrace.main(GenerateTrace.java:5)`

[1] exception.message: Required if exception.type is not set, recommended otherwise.

[2] exception.message:

Warning

This attribute may contain sensitive information.

[3] exception.type: Required if exception.message is not set, recommended otherwise.

Stacktrace representation

Same as Trace Semantic Conventions for Exceptions - Stacktrace Representation.

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