semantic-conventions/semantic_conventions

YAML Model for Semantic Conventions

The YAML descriptions of semantic convention contained in this directory are intended to be used by the various OpenTelemetry language implementations to aid in automatic generation of semantics-related code.

⚠ If you want to read the semantic conventions and not edit them, please see the generated markdown output under /specification/*/semantic_conventions/, i.e.:

• Trace semantic conventions
• Metric semantic conventions
• Resource semantic conventions

Writing semantic conventions

Semantic conventions for the spec MUST adhere to the attribute naming conventions.

Refer to the syntax for how to write the YAML files for semantic conventions and what the YAML properties mean.

A schema file for VS code is configured in the /.vscode/settings.json of this repository, enabling auto-completion and additional checks. Refer to the generator README for what extension you need.

Generating markdown

These YAML files are used by the make target table-generation to generate consistently formatted Markdown tables for all semantic conventions in the specification. Run it from the root of this repository using the command

make table-generation

For more information, see the semantic convention generator in the OpenTelemetry build tools repository. Using this build tool, it is also possible to generate code for use in OpenTelemetry language projects.

See also:

• Markdown Tables
• Code Generator