OpenTelemetry Python provides the OpenTelemetry API and SDK for Python, useful for creating, collecting, and exporting telemetry such as traces, metrics, and logs. It includes installable packages like `opentelemetry-api` (API with no-op implementations) and `opentelemetry-sdk` (reference SDK implementation), plus separate exporter and propagator packages.
Project status
- Actively maintained, with very recent GitHub activity (upstream push on 2026-07-16) and continuous version updates in July 2026 (v1.44.0) and late June 2026 (v1.43.0).
- Update cadence appears frequent, roughly every few weeks (v1.43.0 on 2026-06-24, v1.44.0 on 2026-07-16), suggesting an active development and release train.
AI summary generated
Recent updates
v1.44.0
This release (v1.44.0, prerelease tag 0.65b0) adds several OpenTelemetry SDK features around declarative configuration, resource attribute refreshing, and log exporter API surface (including new limits and helper methods). Release notes also call out user-visible behavior changes such as removal of deprecated Events APIs and a potentially breaking log context clearing optimization. The code diff provided, however, primarily shows packaging metadata and dependency specifier changes from prerelease/dev versions to the final stable versions.
BreakingFeaturesstable
This is a "stable" release with no release notes provided by the publisher. Based on the available diff data, the change set includes multiple SDK-level behavior changes and API removals/additions that are not described in any release notes.
v1.43.0
This release (v1.43.0/0.64b0) expands OpenTelemetry Python's runtime configurability and declarative configuration capabilities, including adding APIs to manage metric readers at runtime and supporting richer YAML/JSON config processing. It also introduces new exporter packages (notably an HTTP transport exporter and an OTLP JSON file exporter) and improves OTLP/proto-related behavior and logging. The provided diff snippet also shows several codegen and tooling/CI updates that are not fully reflected in the release notes.
Featuresv1.42.1
This patch release (v1.42.1/0.63b1) fixes tracing behavior related to RANDOM_TRACE_ID handling when starting child spans. It also updates internal package version pins across exporters and related modules to depend on the new 1.42.1/0.63b1 versions.
v1.42.0
Version 1.42.0 adds support for setting the W3C traceparent trace flags to represent random trace IDs, extends log emission to support exceptions, and improves configurability of OTLP exporters and declarative SDK configuration (including new plugin loading mechanisms). It also includes behavioral fixes such as enforcing W3C Baggage size limits on outbound injection and a bump to semantic conventions that changes at least some Kubernetes metric names.
BreakingFeaturesv1.41.1
Release v1.41.1/0.62b1 appears to be a version bump patch release with no described functional changes in the provided release notes. The code diff mainly updates package version constants and tightens internal dependency pins to the new 1.41.1/0.62b1 versions, plus a CI workflow reference change for contrib testing.
v1.41.0
Version 1.41.0 adds extensive declarative configuration support (file-based YAML/JSON loading with schema validation) across resources, propagators, TracerProvider and MeterProvider, plus multiple new resource detectors. It also includes smaller correctness fixes, logging behavior adjustments, and new/updated tooling around JSON code generation for OTLP. Overall, the release is feature-heavy in the SDK configuration surface area.
BreakingFeaturesv1.40.0
Version 1.40.0 of the OpenTelemetry Python packages includes SDK, API, and exporter improvements, with explicit fixes to tracer behavior and OTLP exporter resiliency. Release notes also highlight a breaking change around NoOpTracer span context propagation when the SDK is not installed, plus multiple telemetry, sampler, and metrics-related enhancements.
BreakingFeaturesv1.39.1
Version 1.39.1/0.60b1 is a patch release that, according to the release notes, silences Events API deprecation warnings for internal users. The code diff also includes routine version alignment across multiple packages and dependency pins to the 1.39.1/0.60b1 set.
v1.39.0
Version 1.39.0 introduces the ongoing Logs API stabilization, including the removal of LogData and the move toward ReadableLogRecord/ReadWriteLogRecord, with OTLP exporters updated accordingly. It also deprecates the Events API/SDK and improves attribute exportability by converting non-AnyValue attribute objects to strings.
BreakingFeaturesv1.38.0
Version 1.38.0 primarily updates logging, extending the API so Logger.emit can be called with keyword arguments for log fields (for example, timestamp, severity, body, attributes, event_name). It also adds deprecation warnings for log classes that will be removed or renamed in 1.39.0, and introduces rstcheck into the pre-commit workflow. Separately, there is a notable internal refactor in the OTLP gRPC exporter mixin that is not covered by the release notes.
BreakingFeatures