# Contributing to opentelemetry-go

The Go special interest group (SIG) meets regularly. See the
OpenTelemetry
[community](https://github.com/open-telemetry/community#golang-sdk)
repo for information on this and other language SIGs.

See the [public meeting
notes](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1E5e7Ld0NuU1iVvf-42tOBpu2VBBLYnh73GJuITGJTTU/edit)
for a summary description of past meetings. To request edit access,
join the meeting or get in touch on
[Slack](https://cloud-native.slack.com/archives/C01NPAXACKT).

## Development

You can view and edit the source code by cloning this repository:

```sh
git clone https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-go.git
```

Run `make test` to run the tests instead of `go test`.

There are some generated files checked into the repo. To make sure
that the generated files are up-to-date, run `make` (or `make
precommit` - the `precommit` target is the default).

The `precommit` target also fixes the formatting of the code and
checks the status of the go module files.

Additionally, there is a `codespell` target that checks for common
typos in the code. It is not run by default, but you can run it
manually with `make codespell`. It will set up a virtual environment
in `venv` and install `codespell` there.

If after running `make precommit` the output of `git status` contains
`nothing to commit, working tree clean` then it means that everything
is up-to-date and properly formatted.

## Pull Requests

### How to Send Pull Requests

Everyone is welcome to contribute code to `opentelemetry-go` via
GitHub pull requests (PRs).

To create a new PR, fork the project in GitHub and clone the upstream
repo:

```sh
go get -d go.opentelemetry.io/otel
```

(This may print some warning about "build constraints exclude all Go
files", just ignore it.)

This will put the project in `${GOPATH}/src/go.opentelemetry.io/otel`. You
can alternatively use `git` directly with:

```sh
git clone https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-go
```

(Note that `git clone` is *not* using the `go.opentelemetry.io/otel` name -
that name is a kind of a redirector to GitHub that `go get` can
understand, but `git` does not.)

This would put the project in the `opentelemetry-go` directory in
current working directory.

Enter the newly created directory and add your fork as a new remote:

```sh
git remote add <YOUR_FORK> git@github.com:<YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME>/opentelemetry-go
```

Check out a new branch, make modifications, run linters and tests, update
`CHANGELOG.md`, and push the branch to your fork:

```sh
git checkout -b <YOUR_BRANCH_NAME>
# edit files
# update changelog
make precommit
git add -p
git commit
git push <YOUR_FORK> <YOUR_BRANCH_NAME>
```

Open a pull request against the main `opentelemetry-go` repo. Be sure to add the pull
request ID to the entry you added to `CHANGELOG.md`.

Avoid rebasing and force-pushing to your branch to facilitate reviewing the pull request.
Rewriting Git history makes it difficult to keep track of iterations during code review.
All pull requests are squashed to a single commit upon merge to `main`.

### How to Receive Comments

* If the PR is not ready for review, please put `[WIP]` in the title,
  tag it as `work-in-progress`, or mark it as
  [`draft`](https://github.blog/2019-02-14-introducing-draft-pull-requests/).
* Make sure CLA is signed and CI is clear.

### How to Get PRs Merged

A PR is considered **ready to merge** when:

* It has received two qualified approvals[^1].

  This is not enforced through automation, but needs to be validated by the
  maintainer merging.
  * The qualified approvals need to be from [Approver]s/[Maintainer]s
    affiliated with different companies. Two qualified approvals from
    [Approver]s or [Maintainer]s affiliated with the same company counts as a
    single qualified approval.
  * PRs introducing changes that have already been discussed and consensus
    reached only need one qualified approval. The discussion and resolution
    needs to be linked to the PR.
  * Trivial changes[^2] only need one qualified approval.

* All feedback has been addressed.
  * All PR comments and suggestions are resolved.
  * All GitHub Pull Request reviews with a status of "Request changes" have
    been addressed. Another review by the objecting reviewer with a different
    status can be submitted to clear the original review, or the review can be
    dismissed by a [Maintainer] when the issues from the original review have
    been addressed.
  * Any comments or reviews that cannot be resolved between the PR author and
    reviewers can be submitted to the community [Approver]s and [Maintainer]s
    during the weekly SIG meeting. If consensus is reached among the
    [Approver]s and [Maintainer]s during the SIG meeting the objections to the
    PR may be dismissed or resolved or the PR closed by a [Maintainer].
  * Any substantive changes to the PR require existing Approval reviews be
    cleared unless the approver explicitly states that their approval persists
    across changes. This includes changes resulting from other feedback.
    [Approver]s and [Maintainer]s can help in clearing reviews and they should
    be consulted if there are any questions.

* The PR branch is up to date with the base branch it is merging into.
  * To ensure this does not block the PR, it should be configured to allow
    maintainers to update it.

* It has been open for review for at least one working day. This gives people
  reasonable time to review.
  * Trivial changes[^2] do not have to wait for one day and may be merged with
    a single [Maintainer]'s approval.

* All required GitHub workflows have succeeded.
* Urgent fix can take exception as long as it has been actively communicated
  among [Maintainer]s.

Any [Maintainer] can merge the PR once the above criteria have been met.

[^1]: A qualified approval is a GitHub Pull Request review with "Approve"
  status from an OpenTelemetry Go [Approver] or [Maintainer].
[^2]: Trivial changes include: typo corrections, cosmetic non-substantive
  changes, documentation corrections or updates, dependency updates, etc.

## Design Choices

As with other OpenTelemetry clients, opentelemetry-go follows the
[OpenTelemetry Specification](https://opentelemetry.io/docs/specs/otel).

It's especially valuable to read through the [library
guidelines](https://opentelemetry.io/docs/specs/otel/library-guidelines).

### Focus on Capabilities, Not Structure Compliance

OpenTelemetry is an evolving specification, one where the desires and
use cases are clear, but the method to satisfy those uses cases are
not.

As such, Contributions should provide functionality and behavior that
conforms to the specification, but the interface and structure is
flexible.

It is preferable to have contributions follow the idioms of the
language rather than conform to specific API names or argument
patterns in the spec.

For a deeper discussion, see
[this](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-specification/issues/165).

## Documentation

Each (non-internal, non-test) package must be documented using
[Go Doc Comments](https://go.dev/doc/comment),
preferably in a `doc.go` file.

Prefer using [Examples](https://pkg.go.dev/testing#hdr-Examples)
instead of putting code snippets in Go doc comments.
In some cases, you can even create [Testable Examples](https://go.dev/blog/examples).

You can install and run a "local Go Doc site" in the following way:

  ```sh
  go install golang.org/x/pkgsite/cmd/pkgsite@latest
  pkgsite
  ```

[`go.opentelemetry.io/otel/metric`](https://pkg.go.dev/go.opentelemetry.io/otel/metric)
is an example of a very well-documented package.

### README files

Each (non-internal, non-test, non-documentation) package must contain a
`README.md` file containing at least a title, and a `pkg.go.dev` badge.

The README should not be a repetition of Go doc comments.

You can verify the presence of all README files with the `make verify-readmes`
command.

## Style Guide

One of the primary goals of this project is that it is actually used by
developers. With this goal in mind the project strives to build
user-friendly and idiomatic Go code adhering to the Go community's best
practices.

For a non-comprehensive but foundational overview of these best practices
the [Effective Go](https://golang.org/doc/effective_go.html) documentation
is an excellent starting place.

As a convenience for developers building this project the `make precommit`
will format, lint, validate, and in some cases fix the changes you plan to
submit. This check will need to pass for your changes to be able to be
merged.

In addition to idiomatic Go, the project has adopted certain standards for
implementations of common patterns. These standards should be followed as a
default, and if they are not followed documentation needs to be included as
to the reasons why.

### Configuration

When creating an instantiation function for a complex `type T struct`, it is
useful to allow variable number of options to be applied. However, the strong
type system of Go restricts the function design options. There are a few ways
to solve this problem, but we have landed on the following design.

#### `config`

Configuration should be held in a `struct` named `config`, or prefixed with
specific type name this Configuration applies to if there are multiple
`config` in the package. This type must contain configuration options.

```go
// config contains configuration options for a thing.
type config struct {
	// options ...
}
```

In general the `config` type will not need to be used externally to the
package and should be unexported. If, however, it is expected that the user
will likely want to build custom options for the configuration, the `config`
should be exported. Please, include in the documentation for the `config`
how the user can extend the configuration.

It is important that internal `config` are not shared across package boundaries.
Meaning a `config` from one package should not be directly used by another. The
one exception is the API packages.  The configs from the base API, eg.
`go.opentelemetry.io/otel/trace.TracerConfig` and
`go.opentelemetry.io/otel/metric.InstrumentConfig`, are intended to be consumed
by the SDK therefore it is expected that these are exported.

When a config is exported we want to maintain forward and backward
compatibility, to achieve this no fields should be exported but should
instead be accessed by methods.

Optionally, it is common to include a `newConfig` function (with the same
naming scheme). This function wraps any defaults setting and looping over
all options to create a configured `config`.

```go
// newConfig returns an appropriately configured config.
func newConfig(options ...Option) config {
	// Set default values for config.
	config := config{/* […] */}
	for _, option := range options {
		config = option.apply(config)
	}
	// Perform any validation here.
	return config
}
```

If validation of the `config` options is also performed this can return an
error as well that is expected to be handled by the instantiation function
or propagated to the user.

Given the design goal of not having the user need to work with the `config`,
the `newConfig` function should also be unexported.

#### `Option`

To set the value of the options a `config` contains, a corresponding
`Option` interface type should be used.

```go
type Option interface {
	apply(config) config
}
```

Having `apply` unexported makes sure that it will not be used externally.
Moreover, the interface becomes sealed so the user cannot easily implement
the interface on its own.

The `apply` method should return a modified version of the passed config.
This approach, instead of passing a pointer, is used to prevent the config from being allocated to the heap.

The name of the interface should be prefixed in the same way the
corresponding `config` is (if at all).

#### Options

All user configurable options for a `config` must have a related unexported
implementation of the `Option` interface and an exported configuration
function that wraps this implementation.

The wrapping function name should be prefixed with `With*` (or in the
special case of a boolean options `Without*`) and should have the following
function signature.

```go
func With*(…) Option { … }
```

##### `bool` Options

```go
type defaultFalseOption bool

func (o defaultFalseOption) apply(c config) config {
	c.Bool = bool(o)
    return c
}

// WithOption sets a T to have an option included.
func WithOption() Option {
	return defaultFalseOption(true)
}
```

```go
type defaultTrueOption bool

func (o defaultTrueOption) apply(c config) config {
	c.Bool = bool(o)
    return c
}

// WithoutOption sets a T to have Bool option excluded.
func WithoutOption() Option {
	return defaultTrueOption(false)
}
```

##### Declared Type Options

```go
type myTypeOption struct {
	MyType MyType
}

func (o myTypeOption) apply(c config) config {
	c.MyType = o.MyType
    return c
}

// WithMyType sets T to have include MyType.
func WithMyType(t MyType) Option {
	return myTypeOption{t}
}
```

##### Functional Options

```go
type optionFunc func(config) config

func (fn optionFunc) apply(c config) config {
	return fn(c)
}

// WithMyType sets t as MyType.
func WithMyType(t MyType) Option {
	return optionFunc(func(c config) config {
		c.MyType = t
        return c
	})
}
```

#### Instantiation

Using this configuration pattern to configure instantiation with a `NewT`
function.

```go
func NewT(options ...Option) T {…}
```

Any required parameters can be declared before the variadic `options`.

#### Dealing with Overlap

Sometimes there are multiple complex `struct` that share common
configuration and also have distinct configuration. To avoid repeated
portions of `config`s, a common `config` can be used with the union of
options being handled with the `Option` interface.

For example.

```go
// config holds options for all animals.
type config struct {
	Weight      float64
	Color       string
	MaxAltitude float64
}

// DogOption apply Dog specific options.
type DogOption interface {
	applyDog(config) config
}

// BirdOption apply Bird specific options.
type BirdOption interface {
	applyBird(config) config
}

// Option apply options for all animals.
type Option interface {
	BirdOption
	DogOption
}

type weightOption float64

func (o weightOption) applyDog(c config) config {
	c.Weight = float64(o)
	return c
}

func (o weightOption) applyBird(c config) config {
	c.Weight = float64(o)
	return c
}

func WithWeight(w float64) Option { return weightOption(w) }

type furColorOption string

func (o furColorOption) applyDog(c config) config {
	c.Color = string(o)
	return c
}

func WithFurColor(c string) DogOption { return furColorOption(c) }

type maxAltitudeOption float64

func (o maxAltitudeOption) applyBird(c config) config {
	c.MaxAltitude = float64(o)
	return c
}

func WithMaxAltitude(a float64) BirdOption { return maxAltitudeOption(a) }

func NewDog(name string, o ...DogOption) Dog    {…}
func NewBird(name string, o ...BirdOption) Bird {…}
```

### Interfaces

To allow other developers to better comprehend the code, it is important
to ensure it is sufficiently documented. One simple measure that contributes
to this aim is self-documenting by naming method parameters. Therefore,
where appropriate, methods of every exported interface type should have
their parameters appropriately named.

#### Interface Stability

All exported stable interfaces that include the following warning in their
documentation are allowed to be extended with additional methods.

> Warning: methods may be added to this interface in minor releases.

These interfaces are defined by the OpenTelemetry specification and will be
updated as the specification evolves.

Otherwise, stable interfaces MUST NOT be modified.

#### How to Change Specification Interfaces

When an API change must be made, we will update the SDK with the new method one
release before the API change. This will allow the SDK one version before the
API change to work seamlessly with the new API.

If an incompatible version of the SDK is used with the new API the application
will fail to compile.

#### How Not to Change Specification Interfaces

We have explored using a v2 of the API to change interfaces and found that there
was no way to introduce a v2 and have it work seamlessly with the v1 of the API.
Problems happened with libraries that upgraded to v2 when an application did not,
and would not produce any telemetry.

More detail of the approaches considered and their limitations can be found in
the [Use a V2 API to evolve interfaces](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-go/issues/3920)
issue.

#### How to Change Other Interfaces

If new functionality is needed for an interface that cannot be changed it MUST
be added by including an additional interface. That added interface can be a
simple interface for the specific functionality that you want to add or it can
be a super-set of the original interface. For example, if you wanted to a
`Close` method to the `Exporter` interface:

```go
type Exporter interface {
	Export()
}
```

A new interface, `Closer`, can be added:

```go
type Closer interface {
	Close()
}
```

Code that is passed the `Exporter` interface can now check to see if the passed
value also satisfies the new interface. E.g.

```go
func caller(e Exporter) {
	/* ... */
	if c, ok := e.(Closer); ok {
		c.Close()
	}
	/* ... */
}
```

Alternatively, a new type that is the super-set of an `Exporter` can be created.

```go
type ClosingExporter struct {
	Exporter
	Close()
}
```

This new type can be used similar to the simple interface above in that a
passed `Exporter` type can be asserted to satisfy the `ClosingExporter` type
and the `Close` method called.

This super-set approach can be useful if there is explicit behavior that needs
to be coupled with the original type and passed as a unified type to a new
function, but, because of this coupling, it also limits the applicability of
the added functionality. If there exist other interfaces where this
functionality should be added, each one will need their own super-set
interfaces and will duplicate the pattern. For this reason, the simple targeted
interface that defines the specific functionality should be preferred.

See also:
[Keeping Your Modules Compatible: Working with interfaces](https://go.dev/blog/module-compatibility#working-with-interfaces).

### Testing

The tests should never leak goroutines.

Use the term `ConcurrentSafe` in the test name when it aims to verify the
absence of race conditions.

### Internal packages

The use of internal packages should be scoped to a single module. A sub-module
should never import from a parent internal package. This creates a coupling
between the two modules where a user can upgrade the parent without the child
and if the internal package API has changed it will fail to upgrade[^3].

There are two known exceptions to this rule:

- `go.opentelemetry.io/otel/internal/global`
  - This package manages global state for all of opentelemetry-go. It needs to
  be a single package in order to ensure the uniqueness of the global state.
- `go.opentelemetry.io/otel/internal/baggage`
  - This package provides values in a `context.Context` that need to be
  recognized by `go.opentelemetry.io/otel/baggage` and
  `go.opentelemetry.io/otel/bridge/opentracing` but remain private.

If you have duplicate code in multiple modules, make that code into a Go
template stored in `go.opentelemetry.io/otel/internal/shared` and use [gotmpl]
to render the templates in the desired locations. See [#4404] for an example of
this.

[^3]: https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-go/issues/3548

### Ignoring context cancellation

OpenTelemetry API implementations need to ignore the cancellation of the context that are
passed when recording a value (e.g. starting a span, recording a measurement, emitting a log).
Recording methods should not return an error describing the cancellation state of the context
when they complete, nor should they abort any work.

This rule may not apply if the OpenTelemetry specification defines a timeout mechanism for
the method. In that case the context cancellation can be used for the timeout with the
restriction that this behavior is documented for the method. Otherwise, timeouts
are expected to be handled by the user calling the API, not the implementation.

Stoppage of the telemetry pipeline is handled by calling the appropriate `Shutdown` method
of a provider. It is assumed the context passed from a user is not used for this purpose.

Outside of the direct recording of telemetry from the API (e.g. exporting telemetry,
force flushing telemetry, shutting down a signal provider) the context cancellation
should be honored. This means all work done on behalf of the user provided context
should be canceled.

## Approvers and Maintainers

### Approvers

- [Evan Torrie](https://github.com/evantorrie), Verizon Media
- [Sam Xie](https://github.com/XSAM), Cisco/AppDynamics
- [Chester Cheung](https://github.com/hanyuancheung), Tencent
- [Damien Mathieu](https://github.com/dmathieu), Elastic

### Maintainers

- [David Ashpole](https://github.com/dashpole), Google
- [Aaron Clawson](https://github.com/MadVikingGod), LightStep
- [Robert Pająk](https://github.com/pellared), Splunk
- [Tyler Yahn](https://github.com/MrAlias), Splunk

### Emeritus

- [Liz Fong-Jones](https://github.com/lizthegrey), Honeycomb
- [Gustavo Silva Paiva](https://github.com/paivagustavo), LightStep
- [Josh MacDonald](https://github.com/jmacd), LightStep
- [Anthony Mirabella](https://github.com/Aneurysm9), AWS

### Become an Approver or a Maintainer

See the [community membership document in OpenTelemetry community
repo](https://github.com/open-telemetry/community/blob/main/community-membership.md).

[Approver]: #approvers
[Maintainer]: #maintainers
[gotmpl]: https://pkg.go.dev/go.opentelemetry.io/build-tools/gotmpl
[#4404]: https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-go/pull/4404
