open-telemetry / open-telemetry/opentelemetry-python

Metric naming conventions reasoning

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Python
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Description

Describe your environment I am currently using the Python SDK for a sample app that creates metrics instruments like Counter, UpDownCounter, and etc. When my metrics were exported to Cloudwatch, I noticed that the metric names are all lowercase so I checked the SDK and found here that metric names are converted to all lowercase for some reason. I was wondering why the metric names are converted to lowercase, and is this the naming convention we should follow? If so, should this be documented somewhere? Thank you.

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Research direction

Start with the linked metric instrument implementation in opentelemetry-sdk/src/opentelemetry/sdk/metrics/_internal/instrument.py and review the existing metric naming documentation. Determine whether lowercase conversion and its rationale are established, then document the convention or clarify the expected behavior; done means the naming guidance is explicit.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
python
Domain
documentation, observability-sre
Issue type
Documentation
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
30/100

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