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chore: Clarify Exemplar applicability to async instruments#5044

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cijothomas wants to merge 4 commits intoopen-telemetry:mainfrom
cijothomas:cijothomas/clarify-exemplar-async-instruments
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chore: Clarify Exemplar applicability to async instruments#5044
cijothomas wants to merge 4 commits intoopen-telemetry:mainfrom
cijothomas:cijothomas/clarify-exemplar-async-instruments

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@cijothomas
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The Exemplar section's intro and bullet list currently focus heavily on trace-metric correlation, which can give the impression that Exemplars are only useful with synchronous instruments (where an active span is typically present). This PR makes two small clarifications:

Changes:

  • Add a sentence to the intro noting that Exemplars also preserve attributes dropped during aggregation, regardless of instrument type (including asynchronous instruments)
  • Qualify the trace/span ID bullet with "For synchronous instruments" to make it clear this aspect is specific to sync instruments, rather than a general requirement

@cijothomas cijothomas requested review from a team as code owners April 22, 2026 00:18
@cijothomas cijothomas changed the title Clarify Exemplar applicability to async instruments chore: Clarify Exemplar applicability to async instruments Apr 22, 2026
@cijothomas cijothomas added the editorial Editorial changes only (typos, changelog, ...). No content-related changes of any kind. label Apr 22, 2026
@jack-berg
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Huh.. we don't collect exemplars for asynchronous instruments, but I didn't consider the angle of capturing attributes dropped during aggregation.

@cijothomas
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Huh.. we don't collect exemplars for asynchronous instruments, but I didn't consider the angle of capturing attributes dropped during aggregation.

You mean "OTel Java" implementation don't collect exemplars right?

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4 participants