open-multi-agent/packages/otel/README.md

@open-multi-agent/otel

Optional OpenTelemetry adapter for @open-multi-agent/core TraceRecord v2. It converts OBS-2 TraceExporter batches into spans on a tracer you explicitly provide. The package never reads, registers, or replaces the global TracerProvider.

npm install @open-multi-agent/core@^1.11.0 @open-multi-agent/otel@^0.1.0
# Install and configure the OpenTelemetry SDK/exporter chosen by your application.

Core 1.11.0 is the first release containing the public TraceRecord v2, sink/exporter, and TraceStore APIs required by this package. Core 1.10.0 is not compatible.

Use an application-owned provider

import { OpenMultiAgent } from '@open-multi-agent/core'
import { createOtelTraceSink } from '@open-multi-agent/otel'

// `provider` is configured by the application with its SDK and exporter.
const sink = createOtelTraceSink({
  tracerProvider: provider,
  metadata: {
    environment: 'production',
    release: '2026.07.15',
    tenantId: 'opaque-tenant-id',
  },
})

const oma = new OpenMultiAgent({ observability: { sinks: [sink] } })

Pass exactly one of tracer or tracerProvider. Passing neither is a clear configuration error: this package does not fall back to trace.getTracer() or any global provider.

Core egressPolicy does not wrap this application-owned provider or any exporter attached to it. Configure telemetry egress in the provider/exporter or at the infrastructure boundary; see the core egress enforcement matrix.

Lifecycle and ownership

The caller owns the tracer/provider in every mode.

• sink.forceFlush() first flushes the OMA batching queue, then delegates to provider.forceFlush() when a provider was supplied and implements it.
• With a direct tracer, there is no provider lifecycle to delegate to, so the adapter phase is a successful no-op.
• sink.shutdown() does not shut down a caller-owned provider by default. Set shutdownOnShutdown: true only when this adapter is the component that owns the provider lifecycle.
• Completed OTel Span objects are released immediately. Lightweight contexts remain only until their OMA root closes; the 256 most recent root contexts are retained so a same-process checkpoint restore can resolve its continuation link. Shutdown ends any still-open span as incomplete and clears all adapter state.
• Provider rejection or timeout becomes the OBS-2 exporter result and sink diagnostics/stats; it never changes an Agent, Task, or Run result.

Use a BatchingTraceSink directly via createOtelTraceExporter() when the application owns batching configuration itself.

For a complete no-network example with the official InMemorySpanExporter, see otel-provider.ts.

Process lifecycle

• Serverless/FaaS: call sink.forceFlush() with a short invocation budget; do not shut down a warm shared sink/provider per invocation.
• CLI: run, force-flush the sink, shut down the sink, then shut down the application-owned provider before natural process exit.
• Long-lived server: stop intake and await in-flight work before the sink cutoff; then force-flush/shut down the sink and finally shut down the provider.

This package and core register no process signal handlers. The application owns that integration. Keep shutdownOnShutdown at its default false when the provider is shared with other instrumentation; set it to true only when this adapter is the provider owner.

Mapping

The adapter creates one OTel span for each OMA span_start/span_end pair. An end record that arrives without a start creates a marked incomplete span so the self-contained OBS-2 end snapshot remains observable. Duplicates and orphan events are ignored with payload-free diagnostics.

OMA operation	OTel representation
root run	oma.run span (INTERNAL)
coordinator decomposition/synthesis	OMA plan/agent/callback span, original name retained
task, agent attempt, consensus, checkpoint	INTERNAL span, original name retained
LLM	CLIENT span with compatible gen_ai.* attributes
tool / delegation	INTERNAL span; delegated task relation is an OTel link
retry / consensus verdict / stream chunks	oma.* events
DAG / restore / synthesis consumption	OTel links with oma.link.relation and explicit resolution metadata

When the referenced span was observed by the same adapter, the OTel link uses that span's actual SDK-generated SpanContext, so backends can resolve it to the exported span. This covers DAG dependencies, delegation, synthesis consumption, and same-process checkpoint restore. Every link also records oma.link.resolved, oma.link.target.trace_id, and oma.link.target.span_id; the target IDs are the stable OMA identifiers.

After a process restart, the adapter has no access to the previous provider's SDK-generated context because checkpoints intentionally contain only OMA IDs. Such a continued_from link remains a valid remote OTel link using the OMA IDs, TraceFlags.NONE, and oma.link.resolved = false. Use its target attributes for correlation; a backend cannot be expected to navigate it to the previously exported OTel span.

Stable correlation attributes include oma.schema.version = 2, oma.run.id, oma.run.attempt, oma.trace.id, oma.span.id, oma.record.id, oma.record.sequence, and oma.otel.mapping.version. oma.otel.gen_ai_semconv.version records the current compatible GenAI mapping: 1.43.0-development. oma.* remains the stable OMA contract; the GenAI attributes are a compatibility surface and can evolve with OpenTelemetry.

ok, cancelled, rejected, and skipped map to OTel Unset; error, timeout, and budget_exhausted map to Error. The source OMA status is always retained as oma.status.

The adapter maps model/provider, input/output/cache/reasoning token counts, tool name/error facts, cost metadata, retry fields, and TTFT. It emits no metrics, so no OMA high-cardinality values become metric labels.

Privacy

Prompt, completion, tool arguments/results, raw payloads, credentials, and reasoning/chain-of-thought content are filtered by default. The adapter uses an explicit low-sensitivity oma.* allowlist rather than forwarding arbitrary record attributes. This includes <thinking> and provider reasoning content. Token counts remain eligible for export.

contentCapture accepts mode: 'disabled' (the default) and mode: 'upstream-policy'. Under upstream-policy the adapter additionally forwards oma.tool.input and oma.tool.output, and nothing else:

const sink = createOtelTraceSink({
  tracerProvider: provider,
  contentCapture: { mode: 'upstream-policy' },
})

That mode defers to the capture policy upstream of the adapter rather than introducing one here. Core records those two attributes only when observability.capture sets toolInput/toolOutput, and only after SensitiveDataProcessor has stripped structured credentials, redacted the text, and truncated it to maxContentChars. Enabling the adapter mode without the core policy exports nothing extra, because the attributes do not exist. Reasoning and chain-of-thought content have no opt-in under any mode.

service.name belongs to the Resource on the application's TracerProvider. This adapter never sets it; a provider built without a Resource reports OMA spans under the OTel default (unknown_service:node). metadata.release and metadata.environment are span attributes (service.version, deployment.environment.name) and do not replace a Resource.

OTLP convenience decision

This initial release deliberately has no /otlp-http convenience subpath. The application chooses and configures its own OpenTelemetry SDK and OTLP (or other) exporter, keeping this package's runtime surface to the OTel API and avoiding eager OTLP imports, global-provider configuration, and a second SDK/exporter version matrix. An explicit convenience subpath can be added later without changing the root import.