open-telemetry / open-telemetry/opentelemetry-cpp

Is support for exemplars still experimental/preview?

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area:metrics documentation spec-compliance triage/accepted
Dominant language
C++
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Description

Hello,

We are interested in using Exemplars to correlate metrics with trace/span IDs. As far as I can see, this is the latest PR merged related to the feature:

https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-cpp/pull/1710

This PR is from 2022 and claims that the feature is still in "preview" mode and gated behind a flag. The latest commit I could find related to Exemplars is this one from 2025:

https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-cpp/commit/7b3dbd0ed525f74cde6ea158eed56f4ea69580cd

Even there, the flag is still explicitly used.

Are Exemplars mature enough to be used in production software? If not, what are the current drawbacks of using them?

Thanks.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reading PR 1710 and commit 7b3dbd0ed525f74cde6ea158eed56f4ea69580cd, then review the current Exemplars implementation and its feature flag. Determine whether the preview status and production drawbacks are documented; done means providing a current, evidence-based answer or updating the relevant documentation.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
cpp
Domain
documentation, observability-sre
Issue type
Documentation
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Active
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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