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Overview
OpenTelemetry Specification is the documentation repository for language-neutral traces, metrics, logs, and related contracts. Implementers can review MUST versus SHOULD requirements, stability, and compatibility at a fixed release.
Features and best fit
Based on official documentation; not hands-on tested · Content checked:
Key features
Best fit
Fit SDK implementation and instrumentation design review
It serves as a baseline when implementing a language SDK or reviewing whether an instrumentation API follows the common contract.
Sources: [1]
Before adoption
Official sources
- [1]Specification README at v1.61.0(2026-10-05)
- [2]Trace API specification at v1.61.0(2026-10-05)
- [3]Specification LICENSE at v1.61.0(2026-10-05)
- [4]Specification v1.61.0 release(2026-10-05)
Supplemental curator note
Pin a release during implementation review and separate the Tracer MUST requirement from the Enabled SHOULD requirement to define the required surface accurately.
Try it in 3 steps
- 1
Fetch specification v1.61.0
Use Git to pin the implementation baseline at v1.61.0 and continue in otel-spec-review. This does not install an SDK.
git clone --branch v1.61.0 --depth 1 https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-specification.git otel-spec-review && cd otel-spec-review - 2
Extract the Tracer contract
Extract the Tracer operations section from the Trace API document into tracer-contract.txt and require nonempty output.
sed -n '/^### Tracer operations/,/^## SpanContext/p' specification/trace/api.md > tracer-contract.txt && test -s tracer-contract.txt - 3
Distinguish required and recommended behavior
Assert separately that creating a new Span is MUST behavior while reporting Enabled is SHOULD behavior.
grep -F 'The `Tracer` MUST provide functions to:' tracer-contract.txt && grep -F 'Create a new `Span`' tracer-contract.txt && grep -F 'The `Tracer` SHOULD provide functions to:' tracer-contract.txt && grep -F 'Report if `Tracer` is `Enabled`' tracer-contract.txt
Growth
Growth trends · Last 30 days
4,346 Stars
Trend data is still being collected.
Development activity
Last 90 days · weekly
- Commits (last 30 days)
- 34
- Open PRs
- 26
- Issues opened
- 28
- Issues closed
- 385
- PRs opened
- 114
- PRs merged
- 100
Issues
28 / 385
Pull requests
114 / 100
Maintenance
- Median first response
- 27 hr
- Issue response rate
- 33.3% (5/15)
Based on up to the 100 newest issues opened by external users in the last 90 days. A first comment from an OWNER, MEMBER, or COLLABORATOR counts as a response; issues whose full comment history cannot be checked are excluded. The median and response rate update weekly.
Built with
Categories and tags
Categories
GitHub data
GitHub dataView detailed GitHub data
GitHub Topics
- opentelemetry
- Stars
- 4,346
- Forks
- 1,005
- Watchers
- 151
- Open issues
- 253
- Contributors
- 318
- Owner type
- Organization
- Primary language
- Makefile
- License
- Apache-2.0
- Repository last updated
- Oct 5, 2026
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