[Playground] OTLP-Mapper - instana to otlp span mapper by abhilash-sivan · Pull Request #2534 · instana/nodejs

abhilash-sivan · 2026-05-04T17:37:09Z

Summary

Introduces the Instana-to-OTLP Converter Playground.

Adds support for exporting traces via OTLP (4318/v1/traces).
Supports OpenTelemetry Semantic Conventions (SemConv) v1.23.

Out of Scope

Metrics export
Logs export

TODO

Core Implementation

Span Data Mapping @abhilash-sivan

Testing

Unit Tests

Single-span scenarios
Multi-span scenarios

End-to-End Testing (@abhilash-sivan)

SemConv v1.23 validation with the current design
SemConv v1.41 compatibility validation
OpenTelemetry wrapper instrumentation testing
Metadata validation with SemConv v1.23 and span data validation with v1.43
without metrics - corelation issue

Performance Testing

Performance testing

Special Cases

Fix type definitions

Issue Tracking

UI Issues: https://ibm.box.com/s/0v5wli0pgvrlg8jqpkhi59mb52o28u75
Results: https://ibm.box.com/s/0v5wli0pgvrlg8jqpkhi59mb52o28u75

Validation Checklist

Before merging, verify the following:

Traces are successfully exported through the OTLP endpoint (4318/v1/traces).
Metrics continue to be exported through the existing endpoint.
The UI correctly identifies and displays applications.

Future Enhancements/TODO

Support the agent announcement cycle disablement use case.
Evaluate exporting logs to the OTLP /v1/logs endpoint.
Implement metrics mapping.
Refactor the current dual transformation flow in span data (internal mapping and OTLP mapping).

References

kirrg001 · 2026-05-12T09:05:34Z

test: send traces via otlp port and metrics via standard port - Idenfies 2 diff apps 1. Otel and 2. Node.js

This needs to be communicated in the next WG. Traces & Metrics mapping is required.

abhilash-sivan · 2026-05-20T09:03:51Z

+   * RabbitMQ-specific mappings
+   * Extends base messaging with RabbitMQ-specific fields
+   */
+  rabbitmq: {


Not verified rabbitmq per se. It's just to show how we differentiate children under messaging or any other group.

But for RabbitMQ, there’s nothing really common with BASE_MAPPINGS.messaging. I don’t think any of the others share much with it either, apart from Kafka.

kirrg001 · 2026-05-20T09:09:15Z

+      mappings: SPAN_ATTRIBUTE_MAPPINGS.kafka,
+      prefix: 'messaging.kafka',
+      additionalAttributes: {
+        'messaging.system': 'kafka'


Why do we need that here? If we have already a custom kafka mapping object?

messaging.system is an additional attribute that we append to the span. For Kafka, the system name also happens to be kafka, so it may seem redundant at first glance.

However, additionalAttributes is intended for constant or computed attributes that do not directly map from a single field inside span.data.kafka.

messaging.system falls into that category since it is effectively a constant defined per transformer, rather than something extracted from the incoming span payload itself.

I have changed this to: 'messaging.system': this.systemName

which will fetch the appropriate value in this case

kirrg001 · 2026-06-17T14:08:28Z

  util.init(config);
  util.hasThePackageBeenInitializedTooLate.activate();
  secrets.init(config);
+  otlp.init(config);


Should we call the module exporters/otlpExporter?

otlp is a bit too short and semantically not easy to read.
WDYT. Choose

kirrg001 · 2026-06-17T14:11:13Z


-  // Use dataPort for sending all telemetry data (metrics, spans, profiles, events, etc.)
-  // dataPort defaults to agentPort but can be configured separately for future use cases (e.g., OTel format)
+  const isOtlpEndpoint = path.startsWith('/v1/');


There is multiple checks for isOtlpX in this file. Lets have one place and just provide the data for the call.

kirrg001 · 2026-06-17T14:12:09Z

+
+  downstreamConnection.sendMetrics(
+    payload,
+    { otlpEnabled },


downstreamConnection knows that we use otlp, right?

kirrg001 · 2026-06-17T14:14:18Z

@@ -0,0 +1,106 @@
+/*
+ * (c) Copyright IBM Corp. 2026


Do we need this app still?
Wondering if we can just have a separate npm script in the example-apps/collector app?

With config otlp being on.

We can remove this after finishing the playground work, since the example app also includes Kafka and database tests that are only required for playground testing.

kirrg001 · 2026-06-17T14:15:21Z

+  let options = {};
+  let callback;
+
+  if (typeof optionsOrCallback === 'function') {


Is this logic new? 🤔
Maybe lets revert this to its bare minimum for otlp

Ah maybe it got added because of the provided config option. We can read the config from the init config object

abhilash-sivan force-pushed the chore-otel-span-mapper branch from 4490ab0 to f1c0d6f Compare May 4, 2026 18:07

abhilash-sivan changed the base branch from main to chore-otlp-playground May 7, 2026 06:42

abhilash-sivan force-pushed the chore-otel-span-mapper branch from 53e1fcc to d261bc5 Compare May 7, 2026 12:45

abhilash-sivan commented May 7, 2026

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abhilash-sivan changed the title ~~Chore otel span mapper~~ chore: instana-otlp span mapper May 7, 2026

abhilash-sivan changed the title ~~chore: instana-otlp span mapper~~ [Playground] OTLP-Mapper - instana to otlp span mapper May 8, 2026

kirrg001 reviewed May 11, 2026

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Comment thread packages/collector/src/agentConnection.js Outdated

kirrg001 reviewed May 11, 2026

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Comment thread packages/core/src/tracing/backend_mappers/index.js Outdated

kirrg001 reviewed May 12, 2026

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Comment thread packages/core/src/tracing/otlp_mapper/mapper.js Outdated

abhilash-sivan force-pushed the chore-otel-span-mapper branch 2 times, most recently from e827e9c to d6c01a6 Compare May 15, 2026 05:58

abhilash-sivan changed the base branch from chore-otlp-playground to main May 18, 2026 05:18

abhilash-sivan force-pushed the chore-otel-span-mapper branch 2 times, most recently from 74c5459 to b5a51c8 Compare May 18, 2026 07:25