Semantic Conventions for Azure Messaging systems

Status: Experimental

The Semantic Conventions for Azure Service Bus and Azure Event Hubs extend and override the Messaging Semantic Conventions that describe common messaging operations attributes in addition to the Semantic Conventions described on this page.

Azure Service Bus

messaging.system MUST be set to "servicebus".

Span attributes

The following additional attributes are defined:

Attribute	Type	Description	Examples	Requirement Level	Stability
messaging.operation.type	string	A string identifying the type of the messaging operation. [1]	publish; create; receive	Required
error.type	string	Describes a class of error the operation ended with. [2]	amqp:decode-error; KAFKA_STORAGE_ERROR; channel-error	Conditionally Required If and only if the messaging operation has failed.
messaging.batch.message_count	int	The number of messages sent, received, or processed in the scope of the batching operation. [3]	0; 1; 2	Conditionally Required [4]
messaging.destination.name	string	The message destination name [5]	MyQueue; MyTopic	Conditionally Required [6]
messaging.servicebus.destination.subscription_name	string	The name of the subscription in the topic messages are received from.	mySubscription	Conditionally Required If messages are received from the subscription.
messaging.servicebus.disposition_status	string	Describes the settlement type.	complete; abandon; dead_letter	Conditionally Required if and only if messaging.operation is settle.
messaging.servicebus.message.delivery_count	int	Number of deliveries that have been attempted for this message.	2	Conditionally Required [7]
server.address	string	Server domain name if available without reverse DNS lookup; otherwise, IP address or Unix domain socket name. [8]	example.com; 10.1.2.80; /tmp/my.sock	Conditionally Required If available.
messaging.message.conversation_id	string	Message correlation Id property.	MyConversationId	Recommended
messaging.message.id	string	A value used by the messaging system as an identifier for the message, represented as a string.	452a7c7c7c7048c2f887f61572b18fc2	Recommended If span describes operation on a single message.
messaging.operation.name	string	The system-specific name of the messaging operation.	ack; nack; send	Recommended [9]
messaging.servicebus.message.enqueued_time	int	The UTC epoch seconds at which the message has been accepted and stored in the entity.	1701393730	Recommended
server.port	int	Server port number. [10]	80; 8080; 443	Recommended

[1]: If a custom value is used, it MUST be of low cardinality.

[2]: The error.type SHOULD be predictable, and SHOULD have low cardinality.

When error.type is set to a type (e.g., an exception type), its canonical class name identifying the type within the artifact SHOULD be used.

Instrumentations SHOULD document the list of errors they report.

The cardinality of error.type within one instrumentation library SHOULD be low. Telemetry consumers that aggregate data from multiple instrumentation libraries and applications should be prepared for error.type to have high cardinality at query time when no additional filters are applied.

If the operation has completed successfully, instrumentations SHOULD NOT set error.type.

If a specific domain defines its own set of error identifiers (such as HTTP or gRPC status codes), it’s RECOMMENDED to:

• Use a domain-specific attribute
• Set error.type to capture all errors, regardless of whether they are defined within the domain-specific set or not.

[3]: Instrumentations SHOULD NOT set messaging.batch.message_count on spans that operate with a single message. When a messaging client library supports both batch and single-message API for the same operation, instrumentations SHOULD use messaging.batch.message_count for batching APIs and SHOULD NOT use it for single-message APIs.

[4]: If the span describes an operation on a batch of messages.

[5]: Destination name SHOULD uniquely identify a specific queue, topic or other entity within the broker. If the broker doesn’t have such notion, the destination name SHOULD uniquely identify the broker.

[6]: If span describes operation on a single message or if the value applies to all messages in the batch.

[7]: If delivery count is available and is bigger than 0.

[8]: Server domain name of the broker if available without reverse DNS lookup; otherwise, IP address or Unix domain socket name.

[9]: If the operation is not sufficiently described by messaging.operation.type.

[10]: When observed from the client side, and when communicating through an intermediary, server.port SHOULD represent the server port behind any intermediaries, for example proxies, if it’s available.

error.type has the following list of well-known values. If one of them applies, then the respective value MUST be used; otherwise, a custom value MAY be used.

Value	Description	Stability
_OTHER	A fallback error value to be used when the instrumentation doesn’t define a custom value.

messaging.operation.type has the following list of well-known values. If one of them applies, then the respective value MUST be used; otherwise, a custom value MAY be used.

Value	Description	Stability
publish	One or more messages are provided for publishing to an intermediary. If a single message is published, the context of the “Publish” span can be used as the creation context and no “Create” span needs to be created.
create	A message is created. “Create” spans always refer to a single message and are used to provide a unique creation context for messages in batch publishing scenarios.
receive	One or more messages are requested by a consumer. This operation refers to pull-based scenarios, where consumers explicitly call methods of messaging SDKs to receive messages.
process	One or more messages are delivered to or processed by a consumer.
settle	One or more messages are settled.

messaging.servicebus.disposition_status has the following list of well-known values. If one of them applies, then the respective value MUST be used; otherwise, a custom value MAY be used.

Value	Description	Stability
complete	Message is completed
abandon	Message is abandoned
dead_letter	Message is sent to dead letter queue
defer	Message is deferred

Azure Event Hubs

messaging.system MUST be set to "eventhubs".

Span attributes

The following additional attributes are defined:

Attribute	Type	Description	Examples	Requirement Level	Stability
messaging.operation.type	string	A string identifying the type of the messaging operation. [1]	publish; create; receive	Required
error.type	string	Describes a class of error the operation ended with. [2]	amqp:decode-error; KAFKA_STORAGE_ERROR; channel-error	Conditionally Required If and only if the messaging operation has failed.
messaging.batch.message_count	int	The number of messages sent, received, or processed in the scope of the batching operation. [3]	0; 1; 2	Conditionally Required [4]
messaging.destination.name	string	The message destination name [5]	MyQueue; MyTopic	Conditionally Required [6]
messaging.destination.partition.id	string	String representation of the partition id messages are sent to or received from, unique within the Event Hub.	1	Conditionally Required If available.
messaging.eventhubs.consumer.group	string	The name of the consumer group the event consumer is associated with.	indexer	Conditionally Required If not default ("$Default").
server.address	string	Server domain name if available without reverse DNS lookup; otherwise, IP address or Unix domain socket name. [7]	example.com; 10.1.2.80; /tmp/my.sock	Conditionally Required If available.
messaging.eventhubs.message.enqueued_time	int	The UTC epoch seconds at which the message has been accepted and stored in the entity.	1701393730	Recommended
messaging.message.id	string	A value used by the messaging system as an identifier for the message, represented as a string.	452a7c7c7c7048c2f887f61572b18fc2	Recommended If span describes operation on a single message.
messaging.operation.name	string	The system-specific name of the messaging operation.	ack; nack; send	Recommended [8]
server.port	int	Server port number. [9]	80; 8080; 443	Recommended

[1]: If a custom value is used, it MUST be of low cardinality.

[2]: The error.type SHOULD be predictable, and SHOULD have low cardinality.

When error.type is set to a type (e.g., an exception type), its canonical class name identifying the type within the artifact SHOULD be used.

Instrumentations SHOULD document the list of errors they report.

The cardinality of error.type within one instrumentation library SHOULD be low. Telemetry consumers that aggregate data from multiple instrumentation libraries and applications should be prepared for error.type to have high cardinality at query time when no additional filters are applied.

If the operation has completed successfully, instrumentations SHOULD NOT set error.type.

If a specific domain defines its own set of error identifiers (such as HTTP or gRPC status codes), it’s RECOMMENDED to:

• Use a domain-specific attribute
• Set error.type to capture all errors, regardless of whether they are defined within the domain-specific set or not.

[3]: Instrumentations SHOULD NOT set messaging.batch.message_count on spans that operate with a single message. When a messaging client library supports both batch and single-message API for the same operation, instrumentations SHOULD use messaging.batch.message_count for batching APIs and SHOULD NOT use it for single-message APIs.

[4]: If the span describes an operation on a batch of messages.

[5]: Destination name SHOULD uniquely identify a specific queue, topic or other entity within the broker. If the broker doesn’t have such notion, the destination name SHOULD uniquely identify the broker.

[6]: If span describes operation on a single message or if the value applies to all messages in the batch.

[7]: Server domain name of the broker if available without reverse DNS lookup; otherwise, IP address or Unix domain socket name.

[8]: If the operation is not sufficiently described by messaging.operation.type.

[9]: When observed from the client side, and when communicating through an intermediary, server.port SHOULD represent the server port behind any intermediaries, for example proxies, if it’s available.

error.type has the following list of well-known values. If one of them applies, then the respective value MUST be used; otherwise, a custom value MAY be used.

Value	Description	Stability
_OTHER	A fallback error value to be used when the instrumentation doesn’t define a custom value.

messaging.operation.type has the following list of well-known values. If one of them applies, then the respective value MUST be used; otherwise, a custom value MAY be used.

Value	Description	Stability
publish	One or more messages are provided for publishing to an intermediary. If a single message is published, the context of the “Publish” span can be used as the creation context and no “Create” span needs to be created.
create	A message is created. “Create” spans always refer to a single message and are used to provide a unique creation context for messages in batch publishing scenarios.
receive	One or more messages are requested by a consumer. This operation refers to pull-based scenarios, where consumers explicitly call methods of messaging SDKs to receive messages.
process	One or more messages are delivered to or processed by a consumer.
settle	One or more messages are settled.