opentelemetry-java

Instrument Java applications with OpenTelemetry using the Java agent for automatic instrumentation or the OpenTelemetry API for manual instrumentation. The agent requires minimal setup—download it, add it to your JVM startup flags, and configure OTLP exporters to send traces, metrics, and context to your backend.

Yes. OpenTelemetry integrates seamlessly with Spring Boot through the Java agent or Spring Boot starter dependencies. The agent automatically instruments Spring components, while manual API usage lets you add custom spans and metrics within your application logic.

Automatic instrumentation uses the Java agent to capture traces and metrics from libraries and frameworks without code changes. Manual instrumentation uses the OpenTelemetry API to add custom spans, metrics, and context propagation where you need visibility into application-specific logic.

Configure OTLP exporters in your Java application to send traces and metrics to a backend. Set exporter endpoints and protocols via environment variables or application properties, then instrument your code. The exporter handles serialization and transport to your observability platform.

Yes. This requires working knowledge of Java, the Java agent, Spring Boot integration, and API usage patterns. You'll set up classpaths, configure properties, write instrumentation code, and troubleshoot production deployments—all Java-specific tasks.

Production-ready patterns include context propagation across services, sampling strategies to manage data volume, custom span attributes for debugging, metric aggregation, and error handling in instrumentation code. These practices ensure observability scales without overhead.