OpenTelemetry JavaScript Client is a JavaScript framework for collecting traces, metrics, and logs from applications. It provides getting started documentation and API and SDK reference materials, useful for setting up and exporting observability telemetry in Node.js.
Project status
- Actively maintained: The repository shows an upstream push today (2026-07-09), with multiple recent update tags across stable and experimental areas (early July 2026), indicating ongoing development rather than maintenance mode.
- Update cadence: Recent updates are frequent (several in the span of weeks, including stable
v2.8.0on 2026-06-11 and multiple new tags on 2026-07-02 and 2026-07-06), plus semconv updates landing within days, suggesting a steady release stream.
AI summary generated
Recent updates
semconv/v1.43.0
semconv/v1.43.0 release notes document only two new semantic convention exports, one in the stable set (TELEMETRY_SDK_LANGUAGE_VALUE_KOTLIN) and one in the unstable/incubating set (ATTR_AZURE_RESOURCE_GROUP_NAME). The provided code diff, however, includes many additional repository-wide and package build changes (TypeScript version bump, CI Node version updates, dependency pruning in exporter packages, and additional SDK-related changelog entries) that are not mentioned in the semconv release notes.
Featuressemconv/v1.42.0
semconv/v1.42.0 updates the OpenTelemetry JavaScript semantic conventions package by adding a number of stable semantic convention exports (including container and Kubernetes attribute constants), and deprecating a set of unstable GenAI-related exports. The release notes also indicate that many GenAI semantic convention exports have been federated to the new semantic-conventions-genai repository.
BreakingFeaturesv2.9.0
OpenTelemetry JS v2.9.0 introduces new metrics and tracing capabilities, including span processor metrics, an AlwaysRecordSampler, and an added maxExportBatchSize option for PeriodicExportingMetricReader. It also adds a new sdk-trace package, but there are constructor signature changes that may require code updates, and @opentelemetry/shim-opentracing is slated for removal in SDK 3.x (around Sep 2026).
BreakingFeaturesexperimental/v0.220.0
Release experimental/v0.220.0 introduces user-facing breaking changes around declarative config parsing behavior and log SDK processor constructor signatures. It also adds configuration schema wiring for new config capabilities (id_generator, sampler settings) and multiple bug fixes around log shutdown behavior and config-to-exporter property propagation.
BreakingFeaturesexperimental/v0.219.0
experimental/v0.219.0 introduces several breaking changes, primarily around declarative configuration parsing, @opentelemetry/api-logs exports, and LoggerOptions option naming. It also adds declarative-config wiring for metric producers (sdk-node) and extends LoggerOptions to support attributes, alongside multiple targeted bug fixes across exporters and the SDKs.
BreakingFeaturesv2.8.0
OpenTelemetry JS v2.8.0 adds developer-facing improvements for tracing and metrics, including better pretty-printing of tracing internals and new self-observability metrics for metric readers. It also introduces a small core utility for time conversion (hrTimeToSeconds). A bug fix limits how much incoming baggage header data is processed to 8192 bytes.
Featuresexperimental/v0.218.0
Release experimental/v0.218.0 adds a custom protobuf implementation for OTLP metrics serialization, improves configuration validation error reporting, and allows startNodeSDK() to be called without arguments. The release notes also include internal refactors in the SDK logs implementation.
Featuressemconv/v1.41.1
This release (semconv/v1.41.1) documents updates to Semantic Conventions, adding new stable attribute exports (for deployment environment name, otel event name, and telemetry distro name/version). It also documents unstable metric export changes, including renames from dotted metric segment forms to dot-separated subcomponents, plus deprecations of the previous Kubernetes container metric names.
BreakingFeaturesexperimental/v0.217.0
This experimental release focuses on configuration type generation from the OTel declarative config schema (stable v1.0.0), plus an OTLP transformer serialization change away from protobufjs. It also adjusts how the SDK's internal diagnostic logger level is derived from configuration, especially around the difference between YAML `log_level` values and `OTEL_LOG_LEVEL`.
BreakingFeaturesv2.7.1
OpenTelemetry JS v2.7.1 mainly addresses TraceState handling in the core API by deferring trace state validation and deprecating the existing TraceState implementation behavior in the API. While labeled as a bug fix, it can change TraceState.set/unset return behavior and how invalid TraceState strings are parsed when duplicate keys are present.
Breakingexperimental/v0.216.0
experimental/v0.216.0 adds new SDK-node wiring (attribute_keys to ViewOptions.attributesProcessors, and TracerProvider initialization in startNodeSDK). It also includes robustness fixes for fetch/XHR instrumentation and a Prometheus exporter internal refactor.
Featuresv2.7.0
v2.7.0 adds new metrics-related capabilities, including log creation metrics support and an additional cardinalitySelector argument for PeriodicExportingMetricReaders. It also includes a fix in opentelemetry-resources to preserve OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES even when it contains empty key-value pairs. No explicit breaking changes or security updates are mentioned in these release notes.
Featuresexperimental/v0.215.0
This release introduces breaking changes to the Logs API, adding a required `forceFlush()` to `LogRecordExporter` and adding `Logger#enabled()` to allow conditional log emission. It also adds OTLP transformer support for custom protobuf logs serialization and deserialization, plus several bug fixes around fetch instrumentation and safer JSON parsing.
BreakingFeaturesapi/v1.9.1
api/v1.9.1 is a bugfix-focused release for the @opentelemetry/api package, with several type-level corrections and runtime fixes (for export condition resolution and console logging behavior). It also includes internal refactors and performance improvements around span and trace id validation, plus cleanup of global utility initialization and explicit export hygiene.
v2.6.1
OpenTelemetry JavaScript v2.6.1 primarily focuses on fixing correctness issues in span attribute handling and instrumentation warnings. It also includes performance optimizations in span attribute and event/link operations by reducing overhead in hot paths.
experimental/v0.214.0
This experimental release introduces additional configuration parsing capabilities and improves startup configuration behavior. It also contains two breaking changes related to configuration naming and gRPC exporter header handling, plus several targeted bug fixes across instrumentation and SDK behavior.
BreakingFeatures