WorkflowForge.Extensions.Observability.OpenTelemetry

Distributed tracing extension for WorkflowForge with OpenTelemetry integration for comprehensive observability.

Dependency Isolation

This extension internalizes OpenTelemetry with ILRepack. This means:

• Reduced dependency conflicts for OpenTelemetry
• Public APIs stay WorkflowForge/BCL only
• Microsoft/System assemblies remain external

Installation

dotnet add package WorkflowForge.Extensions.Observability.OpenTelemetry

Requires: .NET Standard 2.0 or later

Quick Start

using WorkflowForge.Extensions.Observability.OpenTelemetry; using OpenTelemetry; using OpenTelemetry.Trace; // Configure OpenTelemetry var tracerProvider = Sdk.CreateTracerProviderBuilder() .AddSource("WorkflowForge") .AddConsoleExporter() .AddJaegerExporter(options => { options.AgentHost = "localhost"; options.AgentPort = 6831; }) .Build(); // Create foundry with tracing using var foundry = WorkflowForge.CreateFoundry("TracedWorkflow"); var tracer = tracerProvider.GetTracer("WorkflowForge"); // Operations will create spans await smith.ForgeAsync(workflow, foundry);

Key Features

• Distributed Tracing: Track workflows across services
• Automatic Spans: Operation-level span creation
• Context Propagation: W3C Trace Context support
• Multiple Exporters: Jaeger, Zipkin, Console, OTLP
• Rich Metadata: Operation names, durations, results
• Full OpenTelemetry API: Access entire ecosystem

Configuration

Programmatic

var tracerProvider = Sdk.CreateTracerProviderBuilder() .AddSource("WorkflowForge") .AddConsoleExporter() .AddJaegerExporter(options => { options.AgentHost = "localhost"; options.AgentPort = 6831; }) .Build(); using var foundry = WorkflowForge.CreateFoundry("TracedWorkflow"); var tracer = tracerProvider.GetTracer("WorkflowForge"); await smith.ForgeAsync(workflow, foundry);

See Configuration Guide for complete options.

Exporters

Jaeger

.AddJaegerExporter(options => { options.AgentHost = "localhost"; options.AgentPort = 6831; })

Zipkin

.AddZipkinExporter(options => { options.Endpoint = new Uri("http://localhost:9411/api/v2/spans"); })

OTLP (OpenTelemetry Protocol)

.AddOtlpExporter(options => { options.Endpoint = new Uri("http://localhost:4317"); })

Console (Development)

.AddConsoleExporter()

Span Structure

WorkflowForge creates the following span hierarchy:

Workflow: OrderProcessing ├─ Operation: ValidateOrder (12µs) ├─ Operation: ChargePayment (145µs) ├─ Operation: ReserveInventory (87µs) └─ Operation: CreateShipment (234µs)

Each span includes:

• Operation name
• Duration
• Success/failure status
• Custom tags (workflow properties)
• Error details (if failed)

Custom Spans

using var span = tracer.StartActiveSpan("CustomOperation"); span.SetAttribute("order.id", orderId); span.SetAttribute("customer.id", customerId); try { // ... operation logic ... span.SetStatus(Status.Ok); } catch (Exception ex) { span.SetStatus(Status.Error); span.RecordException(ex); throw; }

Context Propagation

WorkflowForge automatically propagates trace context across:

• Operations within a workflow
• Nested workflows
• HTTP calls (with propagation headers)
• Message queues (with context metadata)

Visualization

View traces in:

• Jaeger UI: http://localhost:16686
• Zipkin UI: http://localhost:9411
• Application Insights: Azure Portal
• Grafana Tempo: Grafana dashboard

Documentation

• Getting Started
• Configuration Guide
• Extensions Overview
• Sample 15: OpenTelemetry

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