Supplementary Guidelines

Note: this document is NOT a spec, it is provided to support the Logs API and SDK specifications, it does NOT add any extra requirements to the existing specifications.

Usage

How to Create a Log4J Log Appender

A log appender implementation can be used to bridge logs into the Log SDK OpenTelemetry LogRecordExporters. This approach is typically used for applications which are fine with changing the log transport and is one of the supported log collection approaches.

The log appender implementation will typically acquire a Logger, then call Emit LogRecord for LogRecords received from the application.

Implicit Context Injection and Explicit Context Injection describe how an Appender injects TraceContext into LogRecords.

This same approach can be also used for example for:

• Python logging library by creating a Handler.
• Go zap logging library by implementing the Core interface. Note that since there is no implicit Context in Go it is not possible to get and use the active Span.

Log appenders can be created in OpenTelemetry language libraries by OpenTelemetry maintainers, or by 3rd parties for any logging library that supports a similar extension mechanism. This specification recommends each OpenTelemetry language library to include out-of-the-box Appender implementation for at least one popular logging library.

Logger Name

If the logging library has a concept that is similar to OpenTelemetry’s definition of the Instrumentation Scope’s name, then the appender’s implementation should use that value as the name parameter when obtaining the Logger.

This is for example applicable to:

• Logger name in Log4J
• Channel name in Monolog

Appenders should avoid setting any attributes of the Instrumentation Scope. Doing so may result in different appenders setting different attributes on the same Instrumentation Scope, obtained with the same identity of the Logger, which, according to the specification, is an error.

Context

Implicit Context Injection

When Context is implicitly available (e.g. in Java) the Appender can rely on automatic context propagation by NOT explicitly setting Context when calling emit a LogRecord.

Some log libraries have mechanisms specifically tailored for injecting contextual information info logs, such as MDC in Log4j. When available, it may be preferable to use these mechanisms to set the Context. A log appender can then fetch the Context and explicitly set it when calling emit a LogRecord. This allows the correct Context to be included even when log records are emitted asynchronously, which can otherwise lead the Context to be incorrect.

TODO: clarify how works or doesn’t work when the log statement call site and the log appender are executed on different threads.

Explicit Context Injection

In order for TraceContext to be recorded in LogRecords in languages where the Context must be provided explicitly (e.g. Go), the end user must capture the Context and explicitly pass it to the logging subsystem. The log appender must take this Context and explicitly set it when calling emit a LogRecord.

Support for OpenTelemetry for logging libraries in these languages typically can be implemented in the form of logger wrappers that can capture the context once, when the span is created and then use the wrapped logger to execute log statements in a normal way. The wrapper will be responsible for injecting the captured context in the logs.

This specification does not define how exactly it is achieved since the actual mechanism depends on the language and the particular logging library used. In any case the wrappers are expected to make use of the Trace Context API to get the current active span.

See an example of how it can be done for zap logging library for Go.