Comment by kiitos
Traces have a very specific data model, and corresponding limitations, which don't really accommodate log events/messages of arbitrary size. The access model for traces is also fundamentally different vs. that of logs.
Traces have a very specific data model, and corresponding limitations, which don't really accommodate log events/messages of arbitrary size. The access model for traces is also fundamentally different vs. that of logs.
> There are practical limitations mostly with backend analysis tools
Not just end-of-line analysis tools, but also initiating SDKs, and system agents, and intermediate middle-boxes -- really anything that needs to parse OTel.
Spec > SDK > Trace > Span limits: https://opentelemetry.io/docs/specs/otel/trace/sdk/#span-lim...
Spec > Common > Attribute limits: https://opentelemetry.io/docs/specs/otel/common/#attribute-l...
I know the spec says the default AttributeValueLengthLimit = infinity, but...
> It’s quite common in LLM Observability to capture full prompts and LLM responses as attributes on spans, for example.
...I'd love to learn about any OTel-compatible pipeline/system that supports attribute values of arbitrary size! because I've personally not seen anything that lets you get bigger than O(1MB).
There are practical limitations mostly with backend analysis tools. OTel does not define a limit on how large a span is. It’s quite common in LLM Observability to capture full prompts and LLM responses as attributes on spans, for example.