OpenTelemetry Instrumentation Document Load

This module provides automatic instrumentation for document load for Web applications, which may be loaded using the @opentelemetry/sdk-trace-web package.

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

Compatible with OpenTelemetry JS API and SDK 1.0+.

Installation

npm install --save @opentelemetry/instrumentation-document-load

Usage

import { ConsoleSpanExporter, SimpleSpanProcessor } from '@opentelemetry/sdk-trace-base';
import { WebTracerProvider } from '@opentelemetry/sdk-trace-web';
import { DocumentLoadInstrumentation } from '@opentelemetry/instrumentation-document-load';
import { XMLHttpRequestInstrumentation } from '@opentelemetry/instrumentation-xml-http-request';
import { registerInstrumentations } from '@opentelemetry/instrumentation';
import { B3Propagator } from '@opentelemetry/propagator-b3';
import { CompositePropagator, W3CTraceContextPropagator } from '@opentelemetry/core';

const provider = new WebTracerProvider({
  spanProcessors: [
    new SimpleSpanProcessor(new ConsoleSpanExporter()),
  ],
});

provider.register({
  propagator: new CompositePropagator({
    propagators: [
      new B3Propagator(),
      new W3CTraceContextPropagator(),
    ],
  }),
});

registerInstrumentations({
  instrumentations: [
    new DocumentLoadInstrumentation(),
    new XMLHttpRequestInstrumentation({
      ignoreUrls: [/localhost/],
      propagateTraceHeaderCorsUrls: [
        'http://localhost:8090',
      ],
    }),
  ],
});

Optional: Send a trace parent from your server

This instrumentation supports connecting the server side spans for the initial HTML load with the client side span for the load from the browser's timing API. This works by having the server send its parent trace context (trace ID, span ID and trace sampling decision) to the client.

Because the browser does not send a trace context header for the initial page navigation, the server needs to fake a trace context header in a middleware and then send that trace context header back to the client as a meta tag traceparent . The traceparent meta tag should be in the trace context W3C draft format . For example:

  ...
<head>
  <!--
    https://www.w3.org/TR/trace-context/
    Set the `traceparent` in the server's HTML template code. It should be
    dynamically generated server side to have the server's request trace Id,
    a parent span Id that was set on the server's request span, and the trace
    flags to indicate the server's sampling decision
    (01 = sampled, 00 = notsampled).
    '{version}-{traceId}-{spanId}-{sampleDecision}'
  -->
  <meta name="traceparent" content="00-ab42124a3c573678d4d8b21ba52df3bf-d21f7bc17caa5aba-01">
</head>
<body>
  ...
  <script>
    // and then initialise the WebTracer
    // var webTracer = new WebTracer({ .......
  </script>
</body>

Optional : Add custom attributes to spans if needed

If it is needed to add custom attributes to the document load span,and/or document fetch span and/or resource fetch spans, respective functions to do so needs to be provided as a config to the DocumentLoad Instrumentation as shown below. The attributes will be added to the respective spans before the individual are spans are ended. If the function throws an error , no attributes will be added to the span and the rest of the process continues.

const addCustomAttributesToSpan = (span: Span) => {
  span.setAttribute('<custom.attribute.key>','<custom-attribute-value>');
}
const addCustomAttributesToResourceFetchSpan = (span: Span, resource: PerformanceResourceTiming) => {
  span.setAttribute('<custom.attribute.key>','<custom-attribute-value>');
  span.setAttribute('resource.tcp.duration_ms', resource.connectEnd - resource.connectStart);
}
registerInstrumentations({
  instrumentations: [
    new DocumentLoadInstrumentation({
        applyCustomAttributesOnSpan: {
            documentLoad: addCustomAttributesToSpan,
            resourceFetch: addCustomAttributesToResourceFetchSpan
        }
    })
    ]
})

See examples/tracer-web for a short example.

Document Load Instrumentation Options

The document load instrumentation plugin has few options available to choose from. You can set the following:

Options	Type	Description
`applyCustomAttributesOnSpan.documentLoad`	`DocumentLoadCustomAttributeFunction`	Function for adding custom attributes to `documentLoad` spans.
`applyCustomAttributesOnSpan.documentFetch`	`DocumentLoadCustomAttributeFunction`	Function for adding custom attributes to `documentFetch` spans.
`applyCustomAttributesOnSpan.resourceFetch`	`ResourceFetchCustomAttributeFunction`	Function for adding custom attributes to `resourceFetch` spans
`ignoreNetworkEvents`	`boolean`	Ignore adding network events as span events for document fetch and resource fetch spans.
`ignorePerformancePaintEvents`	`boolean`	Ignore adding performance resource paint span events to document load spans.
`semconvStabilityOptIn`	string	A comma-separated string of tokens as described for `OTEL_SEMCONV_STABILITY_OPT_IN` in the HTTP semantic convention stability migration guide. See the "Semantic Conventions" section below.

Semantic Conventions

This instrumentation creates spans that include some HTTP-related data as span attributes (URL, User-Agent header). Up to and including v0.50.0, instrumentation-document-load follows Semantic Conventions v1.7.0 for these attributes.

HTTP semantic conventions (semconv) were stabilized in semconv v1.23.0, and a migration process was defined. instrumentation-document-load versions 0.51.0 and later include support for migrating to stable HTTP semantic conventions, as described below. The intent is to provide an approximate 6 month time window for users of this instrumentation to migrate to the new HTTP semconv, after which a new minor version will change to use the new semconv by default and drop support for the old semconv. See the HTTP semconv migration plan for OpenTelemetry JS instrumentations.

To select which semconv version(s) is emitted from this instrumentation, use the semconvStabilityOptIn configuration option. This option works as described for OTEL_SEMCONV_STABILITY_OPT_IN:

http: emit the new (stable) v1.23.0 semantics
http/dup: emit both the old and the new (stable) v1.23.0 semantics
By default, if semconvStabilityOptIn includes neither of the above tokens, the old semconv is used.

v1.7.0 semconv	v1.23.0 semconv	Notes
`http.url`	`url.full`	Full HTTP request URL
`http.user_agent`	`user_agent.original`	Value of the HTTP User-Agent header sent by the client.

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.