@opentelemetry/instrumentation-graphql

What is @opentelemetry/instrumentation-graphql?

@opentelemetry/instrumentation-graphql is an npm package that provides automatic tracing and monitoring for GraphQL operations using OpenTelemetry. It helps in capturing performance metrics, tracing GraphQL queries, mutations, and resolvers, and integrating these metrics with various observability backends.

What are @opentelemetry/instrumentation-graphql's main functionalities?

Automatic Tracing of GraphQL Operations

This feature allows you to automatically trace GraphQL operations such as queries and mutations. The code sample demonstrates how to set up the GraphQL instrumentation with OpenTelemetry's NodeTracerProvider.

const { GraphQLInstrumentation } = require('@opentelemetry/instrumentation-graphql');
const { NodeTracerProvider } = require('@opentelemetry/node');
const { registerInstrumentations } = require('@opentelemetry/instrumentation');

const provider = new NodeTracerProvider();
provider.register();

registerInstrumentations({
  instrumentations: [
    new GraphQLInstrumentation({
      // Configuration options
    })
  ],
  tracerProvider: provider,
});

Custom Span Naming

This feature allows you to customize the names of the spans created for GraphQL operations. The code sample shows how to rename the root span based on the operation name.

const { GraphQLInstrumentation } = require('@opentelemetry/instrumentation-graphql');

const graphqlInstrumentation = new GraphQLInstrumentation({
  mergeItems: true,
  renameRootSpan: (operation) => `graphql-${operation.operationName}`,
});

Capture Resolver Spans

This feature enables capturing spans for individual resolvers within a GraphQL operation. The code sample demonstrates how to configure the instrumentation to capture resolver spans up to a certain depth.

const { GraphQLInstrumentation } = require('@opentelemetry/instrumentation-graphql');

const graphqlInstrumentation = new GraphQLInstrumentation({
  allowValues: true,
  depth: 2,
});

Other packages similar to @opentelemetry/instrumentation-graphql

apollo-opentracing

apollo-opentracing is a package that integrates OpenTracing with Apollo Server to provide tracing for GraphQL operations. It is similar to @opentelemetry/instrumentation-graphql but uses the OpenTracing API instead of OpenTelemetry.

graphql-metrics

graphql-metrics is a package that provides performance monitoring and metrics for GraphQL servers. It focuses on capturing and reporting metrics such as response times and error rates, similar to @opentelemetry/instrumentation-graphql but without the full tracing capabilities.

graphql-extensions

graphql-extensions is a package that allows you to extend the functionality of your GraphQL server with custom extensions, including performance monitoring and tracing. It provides a more flexible but less integrated approach compared to @opentelemetry/instrumentation-graphql.

README

OpenTelemetry Instrumentation GraphQL

:bangbang: You could be a component owner for this package, and help maintain the quality its users deserve! Check out open issues on how to help.

This module provides automatic instrumentation and tracing for GraphQL in Node.js applications, which may be loaded using the @opentelemetry/sdk-trace-node package and is included in the @opentelemetry/auto-instrumentations-node bundle.

If total installation size is not constrained, it is recommended to use the @opentelemetry/auto-instrumentations-node bundle with @opentelemetry/sdk-node for the most seamless instrumentation experience.

Compatible with OpenTelemetry JS API and SDK 1.0+.

Note: graphql plugin instruments graphql directly. it should work with any package that wraps the graphql package (e.g apollo).

Installation

npm install @opentelemetry/instrumentation-graphql

Supported Versions

• graphql versions >=14.0.0 <17

Usage

'use strict';

const { GraphQLInstrumentation } = require('@opentelemetry/instrumentation-graphql');
const { NodeTracerProvider } = require('@opentelemetry/sdk-trace-node');
const { registerInstrumentations } = require('@opentelemetry/instrumentation');

const provider = new NodeTracerProvider();
provider.register();

registerInstrumentations({
  instrumentations: [
    new GraphQLInstrumentation({
      // optional params
      // allowValues: true,
      // depth: 2,
      // mergeItems: true,
      // ignoreTrivialResolveSpans: true,
      // ignoreResolveSpans: true,
    }),
  ],
});

Optional Parameters

Param	type	Default Value	Description
mergeItems	boolean	false	Whether to merge list items into a single element. example: users.*.name instead of users.0.name, users.1.name
depth	number	-1	The maximum depth of fields/resolvers to instrument. When set to 0 it will not instrument fields and resolvers. When set to -1 it will instrument all fields and resolvers.
allowValues	boolean	false	When set to true it will not remove attributes values from schema source. By default all values that can be sensitive are removed and replaced with "*"
ignoreTrivialResolveSpans	boolean	false	Don't create spans for the execution of the default resolver on object properties.
ignoreResolveSpans	boolean	false	Don't create spans for resolvers, regardless if they are trivial or not.
responseHook	GraphQLInstrumentationExecutionResponseHook	undefined	Hook that allows adding custom span attributes based on the data returned from "execute" GraphQL action.

Verbosity

The instrumentation by default will create a span for each invocation of a resolver.

A resolver is run by graphql for each field in the query response, which can be a lot of spans for objects with many properties, or when lists are involved.

There are few config options which can be used to reduce the verbosity of the instrumentations.

They are all disabled by default. User can opt in to any combination of them to control the amount of spans.

ignoreTrivialResolveSpans

When a resolver function is not defined on the schema for a field, graphql will use the default resolver which just looks for a property with that name on the object. If the property is not a function, it's not very interesting to trace.

ignoreResolveSpans

The performance overhead for complex schemas with a lot of resolvers can be high due to the large number of spans created. When ignoreResolveSpans is set to true, no spans for resolvers will be created.

If you are using @apollo/server as your graphql server, you might want to enable this option because all resolvers are currently considered non-trivial.

depth

The depth is the number of nesting levels of the field, and the following is a query with a depth of 3:

{
  a {
    b {
      c
    }
  }
}

You can limit the instrumentation to stop recording "resolve" spans after a specific depth is reached.

• -1 means no limit.
• 0 means don't record any "resolve" spans.
• 2 for the example above will record a span for resolving "a" and "b" but not "c".

mergeItems

When resolving a field to a list, graphql will execute a resolver for every field in the query on every object in the list.

When setting mergeItems to true it will only record a span for the first invocation of a resolver on each field in the list, marking it's path as "foo.*.bar" instead of "foo.0.bar", "foo.1.bar".

Notice that all span data only reflects the invocation on the first element. That includes timing, events and status.

Downstream spans in the context of all resolvers will be child of the first span.

Examples

Can be found here

Semantic Conventions

This package does not currently generate any attributes from semantic conventions.

Useful links

• For more information on OpenTelemetry, visit: https://opentelemetry.io/
• For more about OpenTelemetry JavaScript: https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-js
• For help or feedback on this project, join us in GitHub Discussions

License

Apache 2.0 - See LICENSE for more information.