[Feature]: Otel set_parent span

[AzHicham]

Is your feature request related to a problem?

I see that there is a new feature allowing to pass the TracingContext (span_id, trace_id, ..)
This is great but unfortunately it's lacking the connection between span from Sender ans span from Receiver!
In a distributed system, the trace_id should remain the same and we should have two span_id one being the parent of the other!

Describe the solution you'd like

A possible solution is to replicate the behavior of actix-web-tracing crate.
They extract the traceparent (ie concatenation of trace_id, span_id, flag, etc) and this traceparent is used to recreate a context in the other side. Finally the newly created span will be created with a parent context!

Describe alternatives you've considered

No response

Use case

Really useful to debug/plot all calls in a distributed system (with loki, tempo and grafana for instance)

Additional context

No response

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow this project's Code of Conduct

Relates to #664

[AzHicham]

Btw instead of storing individually span_id, trace_id etc in TraceContext!
You should store the W3C traceparent string : {version}-{trace_id}-{span_id}-{trace_flags}.

This is the standard way to transmit otel context between services !

Then impl opentelemetry::propagation::{Extractor, Injector}; for TraceContext this way we can easily inject and extract context from TraceContext!

finally use set_parent in make_span !!

I can do a PR if you want :)

[geofmureithi]

I agree with you. There is no connection between TraceContext and opentelemtry. These PRs were done differently. I am definitely open to a PR!

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On Fri, 13 Mar 2026 at 13:17, Hicham Azimani ***@***.***> wrote: *AzHicham* left a comment (apalis-dev/apalis#706) <#706 (comment)> Btw instead of storing individually span_id, trace_id etc in TraceContext! You should store the W3C traceparent string : {version}-{trace_id}-{span_id}-{trace_flags}. This is the standard way to transmit otel context between services ! Then impl opentelemetry::propagation::{Extractor, Injector}; for TraceContext this way we can easily inject and extract context from TraceContext! finally use set_parent in make_span !! I can do a PR if you want :) — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#706 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AWXVRGVGSAKEVEUMPPYNW3T4QPGY3AVCNFSM6AAAAACWQYOC36VHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHM2DANJUGA3DMNZRGE> . You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[liamdiprose]

Hi @AzHicham, I contributed the Otel layer.

I'm still getting the hang of otel, particularly tracing, so thank you for your explanation and example. I'd like to get it right so I'll be happy to assist if you choose to start a PR. Most of the work was done here:

https://github.com/apalis-dev/apalis/blob/main/apalis/src/layers/opentelemetry/mod.rs

We're planning to adopt Jaeger and tracing, so I'll have a go at implementing this change after my current block of work is out of the way - around the end of April.

Thanks for your suggestion and I look forward to seeing it materialise one way or another.

[AzHicham]

Hello,

Cool, I'll try to find some time this week to work on it !!

[geofmureithi]

@AzHicham Let me know if you have made any progress

[AzHicham]

Hello, really sorry for the delay

here is a draft working PR #716!

I'm open to any changes, especially If we need to add integration tests to ensure the trace_id is correctly propagated ! But I do not see how to do that for the moment