Semantic conventions for AWS SNS

Status: Development

The Semantic Conventions for AWS SNS extend the general AWS SDK Semantic Conventions that describe common AWS SDK attributes in addition to the Semantic Conventions described on this page.

Attributes:

Key	Stability	Requirement Level	Value Type	Description	Example Values
messaging.operation.name		Required	string	The system-specific name of the messaging operation.	ack; nack; send
error.type		Conditionally Required If and only if the messaging operation has failed.	string	Describes a class of error the operation ended with. [1]	amqp:decode-error; KAFKA_STORAGE_ERROR; channel-error
messaging.destination.name		Conditionally Required [2]	string	The message destination name [3]	MyQueue; MyTopic
messaging.operation.type		Conditionally Required If applicable.	string	A string identifying the type of the messaging operation. [4]	create; send; receive
server.address		Conditionally Required If available.	string	Server domain name if available without reverse DNS lookup; otherwise, IP address or Unix domain socket name. [5]	example.com; 10.1.2.80; /tmp/my.sock
aws.request_id		Recommended	string	The AWS request ID as returned in the response headers x-amzn-requestid, x-amzn-request-id or x-amz-request-id.	79b9da39-b7ae-508a-a6bc-864b2829c622; C9ER4AJX75574TDJ
aws.sns.topic.arn		Recommended	string	The ARN of the AWS SNS Topic. An Amazon SNS topic is a logical access point that acts as a communication channel.	arn:aws:sns:us-east-1:123456789012:mystack-mytopic-NZJ5JSMVGFIE
messaging.message.id		Recommended If span describes operation on a single message.	string	A value used by the messaging system as an identifier for the message, represented as a string.	452a7c7c7c7048c2f887f61572b18fc2
server.port		Recommended	int	Server port number. [6]	80; 8080; 443

[1] error.type: 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.

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

[3] messaging.destination.name: 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.

[4] messaging.operation.type: If a custom value is used, it MUST be of low cardinality.

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

[6] server.port: 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.

The following attributes can be important for making sampling decisions and SHOULD be provided at span creation time (if provided at all):

• messaging.destination.name
• messaging.operation.name
• messaging.operation.type
• server.address
• server.port

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
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 sending scenarios.
process	One or more messages are processed by a consumer.
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.
send	One or more messages are provided for sending to an intermediary. If a single message is sent, the context of the “Send” span can be used as the creation context and no “Create” span needs to be created.
settle	One or more messages are settled.