@opentelemetry/api

What is @opentelemetry/api?

The @opentelemetry/api package provides a set of APIs to instrument JavaScript applications for telemetry purposes. It allows developers to collect traces and metrics from their applications, which can then be exported to various observability backends for monitoring and analysis. The API is designed to be minimal, extensible, and vendor-neutral.

What are @opentelemetry/api's main functionalities?

Tracing

This feature allows the creation and management of traces to monitor the flow of a request through various services. The code sample demonstrates how to create a tracer, start a new span, and then end the span.

const { trace } = require('@opentelemetry/api');
const tracer = trace.getTracer('example-tracer');
const span = tracer.startSpan('example-span');
span.end();

Context Propagation

This feature enables the propagation of context information across asynchronous operations or service boundaries. The code sample shows how to associate a span with a context and execute a function within this context.

const { context, trace } = require('@opentelemetry/api');
const currentContext = context.active();
const span = trace.getTracer('example-tracer').startSpan('example-span');
context.with(trace.setSpan(currentContext, span), () => {
  // Your synchronous or asynchronous operation here
  span.end();
});

Metrics

This feature supports the collection of quantitative measurements of operational events, such as request counts. The code sample illustrates how to create a meter, define a counter metric, and increment the counter.

const { metrics } = require('@opentelemetry/api');
const meter = metrics.getMeter('example-meter');
const counter = meter.createCounter('example-counter');
counter.add(1);

Other packages similar to @opentelemetry/api

jaeger-client

Jaeger client is a package for tracing applications and sending the traces to Jaeger, a distributed tracing system. Unlike @opentelemetry/api, which is designed to be vendor-neutral and supports multiple backends, jaeger-client is specifically tailored for integration with Jaeger.

prom-client

Prom-client is a package for collecting metrics in Node.js applications and exporting them to Prometheus, a monitoring and alerting toolkit. While @opentelemetry/api provides a more general approach to metrics collection compatible with various backends, prom-client is specifically focused on Prometheus integration.

zipkin-js

Zipkin-js is a library for instrumenting Node.js applications for distributed tracing with Zipkin, a distributed tracing system. It offers functionality similar to the tracing aspects of @opentelemetry/api but is dedicated to Zipkin integration, whereas @opentelemetry/api aims for broader compatibility with different observability tools.