[[actuator.observability]]
= Observability

Observability is the ability to observe the internal state of a running system from the outside.
It consists of the three pillars: logging, metrics and traces.

For metrics and traces, Spring Boot uses {url-micrometer-docs}/observation[Micrometer Observation].
To create your own observations (which will lead to metrics and traces), you can inject an javadoc:io.micrometer.observation.ObservationRegistry[].

include-code::MyCustomObservation[]

NOTE: Low cardinality tags will be added to metrics and traces, while high cardinality tags will only be added to traces.

Beans of type javadoc:io.micrometer.observation.ObservationPredicate[], javadoc:io.micrometer.observation.GlobalObservationConvention[], javadoc:io.micrometer.observation.ObservationFilter[] and javadoc:io.micrometer.observation.ObservationHandler[] will be automatically registered on the javadoc:io.micrometer.observation.ObservationRegistry[].
You can additionally register any number of javadoc:org.springframework.boot.actuate.autoconfigure.observation.ObservationRegistryCustomizer[] beans to further configure the registry.

TIP: Observability for JDBC can be configured using a separate project.
The https://github.com/jdbc-observations/datasource-micrometer[Datasource Micrometer project] provides a Spring Boot starter which automatically creates observations when JDBC operations are invoked.
Read more about it https://jdbc-observations.github.io/datasource-micrometer/docs/current/docs/html/[in the reference documentation].

TIP: Observability for R2DBC is built into Spring Boot.
To enable it, add the `io.r2dbc:r2dbc-proxy` dependency to your project.



[[actuator.observability.context-propagation]]
== Context Propagation
Observability support relies on the https://github.com/micrometer-metrics/context-propagation[Context Propagation library] for forwarding the current observation across threads and reactive pipelines.
By default, javadoc:java.lang.ThreadLocal[] values are not automatically reinstated in reactive operators.
This behavior is controlled with the configprop:spring.reactor.context-propagation[] property, which can be set to `auto` to enable automatic propagation.

For more details about observations please see the {url-micrometer-docs}/observation[Micrometer Observation documentation].



[[actuator.observability.common-tags]]
== Common Tags

Common tags are generally used for dimensional drill-down on the operating environment, such as host, instance, region, stack, and others.
Common tags are applied to all observations as low cardinality tags and can be configured, as the following example shows:

[configprops,yaml]
----
management:
  observations:
    key-values:
      region: "us-east-1"
      stack: "prod"
----

The preceding example adds `region` and `stack` tags to all observations with a value of `us-east-1` and `prod`, respectively.



[[actuator.observability.preventing-observations]]
== Preventing Observations

If you'd like to prevent some observations from being reported, you can use the configprop:management.observations.enable[] properties:

[configprops,yaml]
----
management:
  observations:
    enable:
      denied:
        prefix: false
      another:
        denied:
          prefix: false
----

The preceding example will prevent all observations with a name starting with `denied.prefix` or `another.denied.prefix`.

TIP: If you want to prevent Spring Security from reporting observations, set the property configprop:management.observations.enable.spring.security[] to `false`.

If you need greater control over the prevention of observations, you can register beans of type javadoc:io.micrometer.observation.ObservationPredicate[].
Observations are only reported if all the javadoc:io.micrometer.observation.ObservationPredicate[] beans return `true` for that observation.

include-code::MyObservationPredicate[]

The preceding example will prevent all observations whose name contains "denied".



[[actuator.observability.opentelemetry]]
== OpenTelemetry Support

NOTE: There are several ways to support https://opentelemetry.io/[OpenTelemetry] in your application.
You can use the https://opentelemetry.io/docs/zero-code/java/agent/[OpenTelemetry Java Agent] or the https://opentelemetry.io/docs/zero-code/java/spring-boot-starter/[OpenTelemetry Spring Boot Starter],
which are supported by the OTel community; the metrics and traces use the semantic conventions defined by OTel libraries.
This documentation describes OpenTelemetry as officially supported by the Spring team, using Micrometer and the OTLP exporter;
the metrics and traces use the semantic conventions described in the Spring projects documentation, such as {url-spring-framework-docs}/integration/observability.html[Spring Framework].

Spring Boot's actuator module includes basic support for OpenTelemetry.

It provides a bean of type javadoc:io.opentelemetry.api.OpenTelemetry[], and if there are beans of type javadoc:io.opentelemetry.sdk.trace.SdkTracerProvider[], javadoc:io.opentelemetry.context.propagation.ContextPropagators[], javadoc:io.opentelemetry.sdk.logs.SdkLoggerProvider[] or javadoc:io.opentelemetry.sdk.metrics.SdkMeterProvider[] in the application context, they automatically get registered.
Additionally, it provides a javadoc:io.opentelemetry.sdk.resources.Resource[] bean.
The attributes of the auto-configured javadoc:io.opentelemetry.sdk.resources.Resource[] can be configured via the configprop:management.opentelemetry.resource-attributes[] configuration property.
If you have defined your own javadoc:io.opentelemetry.sdk.resources.Resource[] bean, this will no longer be the case.

NOTE: Spring Boot does not provide auto-configuration for OpenTelemetry metrics or logging.
OpenTelemetry tracing is only auto-configured when used together with xref:actuator/tracing.adoc[Micrometer Tracing].

The next sections will provide more details about logging, metrics and traces.



[[actuator.observability.annotations]]
== Micrometer Observation Annotations support

To enable scanning of observability annotations like javadoc:io.micrometer.observation.annotation.Observed[format=annotation], javadoc:io.micrometer.core.annotation.Timed[format=annotation], javadoc:io.micrometer.core.annotation.Counted[format=annotation], javadoc:io.micrometer.core.aop.MeterTag[format=annotation] and javadoc:io.micrometer.tracing.annotation.NewSpan[format=annotation] annotations, you need to set the configprop:management.observations.annotations.enabled[] property to `true`.
This feature is supported by Micrometer directly.
Please refer to the {url-micrometer-docs-concepts}/timers.html#_the_timed_annotation[Micrometer], {url-micrometer-docs-observation}/components.html#micrometer-observation-annotations[Micrometer Observation] and {url-micrometer-tracing-docs}/api.html#_aspect_oriented_programming[Micrometer Tracing] reference docs.

NOTE: When you annotate methods or classes which are already instrumented (for example xref:reference:actuator/metrics.adoc#actuator.metrics.supported.spring-data-repository[Spring Data repositories] or xref:reference:actuator/metrics.adoc#actuator.metrics.supported.spring-mvc[Spring MVC controllers]), you will get duplicate observations.
In that case you can either disable the automatic instrumentation using xref:reference:actuator/observability.adoc#actuator.observability.preventing-observations[properties] or an javadoc:io.micrometer.observation.ObservationPredicate[] and rely on your annotations, or you can remove your annotation.
