Migrate OpenTelemetry instrumentation to stable semantic conventions (semconv 1.x) without breaking dashboards
domain: opentelemetry.io · 6 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
Sampled — shipped under file-level sampling, not individually fact-checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Steps
Audit your current span and metric attribute names by querying your trace backend for a representative sample of spans and listing all attribute keys across service spans
Compare your attribute names against the stable OTel semantic conventions specification (semconv 1.x) for your signal domains (HTTP, database, messaging, RPC); note changed or removed attribute names
Update your SDK or instrumentation library versions to those shipping stable semconv; for auto-instrumentation agents this often means upgrading the agent version
For a migration window, configure the SDK or agent to emit both the old and new attribute names simultaneously using compatibility flags where available, so existing dashboards continue to work
Update Grafana dashboards, Prometheus recording rules, Datadog monitors, and alert rules to reference the new attribute names; deploy dashboard changes before removing the old attribute aliases
Remove the compatibility dual-emit mode after confirming all consumers have been updated; validate by searching for the deprecated attribute names in recent trace samples
Known gotchas
Semantic convention changes are not always backwards compatible between minor versions; always read the CHANGELOG for the specific semconv release before upgrading instrumentation libraries
Auto-instrumentation libraries may adopt new semconv at different versions from the SDK core; it is possible to have a modern SDK emitting old semconv if the instrumentation plugin lags behind
Some backends like Datadog remap OTel attributes to their own conventions on ingestion; a semconv change may therefore affect Datadog facet names used in saved searches and dashboards
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