Getting started
Note
You can also use the Java agent to instrument your Spring Boot application. For the pros and cons, see Java agent versus Spring Boot starter.Compatibility
The OpenTelemetry Spring Boot starter works with Spring Boot 2.6+ and 3.0+, and Spring Boot native image applications. The opentelemetry-java-examples/spring-native repository contains an example of a Spring Boot Native image application instrumented using the OpenTelemetry Spring Boot starter.
Dependency management
A Bill of Material (BOM) ensures that versions of dependencies (including transitive ones) are aligned.
Importing the opentelemetry-bom and opentelemetry-instrumentation-bom-alpha
BOMs when using the OpenTelemetry starter is important to ensure version
alignment across all OpenTelemetry dependencies.
The following example shows how to import both BOMs using Maven:
<dependencyManagement>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>io.opentelemetry</groupId>
<artifactId>opentelemetry-bom</artifactId>
<version>1.38.0</version>
<type>pom</type>
<scope>import</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>io.opentelemetry.instrumentation</groupId>
<artifactId>opentelemetry-instrumentation-bom-alpha</artifactId>
<version>2.4.0-alpha</version>
<type>pom</type>
<scope>import</scope>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
</dependencyManagement>
With Gradle and Spring Boot, you have two ways to import a BOM.
You can use the Gradle’s native BOM support by adding dependencies:
import org.springframework.boot.gradle.plugin.SpringBootPlugin
plugins {
id("java")
id("org.springframework.boot") version "3.2.O"
}
dependencies {
implementation(platform(SpringBootPlugin.BOM_COORDINATES))
implementation(platform("io.opentelemetry:opentelemetry-bom:1.38.0"))
implementation(platform("io.opentelemetry.instrumentation:opentelemetry-instrumentation-bom-alpha:2.4.0-alpha"))
}
The other way with Gradle is to use the io.spring.dependency-management plugin
and to import the BOMs in dependencyManagement:
plugins {
id("java")
id("org.springframework.boot") version "3.2.O"
id("io.spring.dependency-management") version "1.1.0"
}
dependencyManagement {
imports {
mavenBom("io.opentelemetry:opentelemetry-bom:1.38.0")
mavenBom("io.opentelemetry.instrumentation:opentelemetry-instrumentation-bom-alpha:2.4.0-alpha")
}
}
Note
Be careful not to mix up the different ways of configuring things with Gradle. For example, don’t useimplementation(platform("io.opentelemetry:opentelemetry-bom:1.38.0"))
with the io.spring.dependency-management plugin.OpenTelemetry Starter dependency
Add the dependency given below to enable the OpenTelemetry starter.
The OpenTelemetry starter uses OpenTelemetry Spring Boot autoconfiguration.
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>io.opentelemetry.instrumentation</groupId>
<artifactId>opentelemetry-spring-boot-starter</artifactId>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
dependencies {
implementation("io.opentelemetry.instrumentation:opentelemetry-spring-boot-starter")
}