Requirements and configurations

[lfvjimisola]

Hi/Hej,

First... I was at SpringIO but missed your talk there. Saw it now on YT. Very useful. Thanks!

Our organization is starting some stuff using Spring AI and we have a dev setup with docker-compose etc.
However, the arconio-io setup seems rather smooth and I'm looking into it now to see if it can replace/improve what we have.

I have a few questions:

• https://arconia.io/docs/arconia/latest/system-requirements/ names Java and Spring Boot but there are other potential (major) dependencies as well that perhaps should be listed such as Testcontainers (it is mentioned under https://arconia.io/docs/arconia/latest/dev-services/).
• Does Arconia use spring.docker.compose under the hood or just TestContainers directly? We use podman which spring.docker.compose does not support (yet)?
• We use log4j directly (and not via SLF4J). I've read the docs and excluded arconia-opentelemetry-logback-bridge but I still get an exception related to the bridge:

2025-08-14T10:40:47.695715603Z main INFO Configuration org.apache.logging.log4j.core.config.DefaultConfiguration@67a20f67 stopped.
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Unable to instantiate factory class [io.arconia.opentelemetry.logback.autoconfigure.LogbackOpenTelemetryBridgeApplicationListener] for factory type [org.springframework.context.ApplicationListener]
        at org.springframework.core.io.support.SpringFactoriesLoader$FailureHandler.lambda$throwing$0(SpringFactoriesLoader.java:642)
        at org.springframework.core.io.support.SpringFactoriesLoader$FailureHandler.lambda$handleMessage$3(SpringFactoriesLoader.java:666)
        at org.springframework.core.io.support.SpringFactoriesLoader.instantiateFactory(SpringFactoriesLoader.java:227)
        at org.springframework.core.io.support.SpringFactoriesLoader.load(SpringFactoriesLoader.java:202)
        at org.springframework.core.io.support.SpringFactoriesLoader.load(SpringFactoriesLoader.java:158)
        at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.getSpringFactoriesInstances(SpringApplication.java:466)
        at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.getSpringFactoriesInstances(SpringApplication.java:462)
        at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.<init>(SpringApplication.java:279)
        at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.<init>(SpringApplication.java:257)
        at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:1361)
        at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:1350)
        at se.lfv.sysdev.app.lfvbot.SpringBootApp.main(SpringBootApp.java:10)
Caused by: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: ch/qos/logback/core/Appender

Is there a way to configure Arconia and OpenTelemetry to use log4j via a bridge? I reckon such a thing must be implemented in a similar fashion as https://github.com/arconia-io/arconia/tree/main/arconia-observability/arconia-opentelemetry-logback-bridge.

Mange tak.

Best Regards,
Jimisola

[lfvjimisola]

or come to think of it perhaps it's just to use:

    <dependency>
        <groupId>io.opentelemetry.instrumentation</groupId>
        <artifactId>opentelemetry-log4j-appender-2.17</artifactId>
        <scope>runtime</scope>
    </dependency>

[lfvjimisola]

It seems as if the arconia-logback-bridge is still enabled some how:

2025-08-14T11:11:52.091453416Z main INFO Configuration org.apache.logging.log4j.core.config.DefaultConfiguration@50b472aa stopped.
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Unable to instantiate factory class [io.arconia.opentelemetry.logback.autoconfigure.LogbackOpenTelemetryBridgeApplicationListener] for factory type [org.springframework.context.ApplicationListener]
        at org.springframework.core.io.support.SpringFactoriesLoader$FailureHandler.lambda$throwing$0(SpringFactoriesLoader.java:642)
        at org.springframework.core.io.support.SpringFactoriesLoader$FailureHandler.lambda$handleMessage$3(SpringFactoriesLoader.java:666)
        at org.springframework.core.io.support.SpringFactoriesLoader.instantiateFactory(SpringFactoriesLoader.java:227)
        at org.springframework.core.io.support.SpringFactoriesLoader.load(SpringFactoriesLoader.java:202)
        at org.springframework.core.io.support.SpringFactoriesLoader.load(SpringFactoriesLoader.java:158)
        at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.getSpringFactoriesInstances(SpringApplication.java:466)
        at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.getSpringFactoriesInstances(SpringApplication.java:462)
        at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.<init>(SpringApplication.java:279)
        at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.<init>(SpringApplication.java:257)
        at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:1361)
        at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:1350)
        at se.lfv.sysdev.app.lfvbot.SpringBootApp.main(SpringBootApp.java:10)
Caused by: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: ch/qos/logback/core/Appender

		<dependency>
			<groupId>io.arconia</groupId>
			<artifactId>arconia-spring-boot-starter</artifactId>
			<exclusions>
				<exclusion>
					<groupId>io.arconia</groupId>
					<artifactId>arconia-opentelemetry-logback-bridge</artifactId>
				</exclusion>
			</exclusions>
		</dependency>
		<dependency>
			<groupId>io.opentelemetry.instrumentation</groupId>
			<artifactId>opentelemetry-log4j-appender-2.17</artifactId>
			<scope>runtime</scope>
		</dependency>

		<dependency>
			<groupId>io.arconia</groupId>
			<artifactId>arconia-opentelemetry-spring-boot-starter</artifactId>
		</dependency>
		<dependency>
			<groupId>io.arconia</groupId>
			<artifactId>arconia-dev-services-lgtm</artifactId>
			<scope>runtime</scope>
			<optional>true</optional>
		</dependency>

[ThomasVitale]

@lfvjimisola thanks so much for reaching out about this. Arconia is still in its early stage, so any feedback is greatly appreciated!

• In general, Arconia follows the same BOM as Spring Boot in terms of dependencies. For example, when using Spring Boot 3.5.4, the version of Testcontainers used is 1.21.3. I created this issue to expand the documentation with more information about this. [Docs] Add more details to the Arconia requirements page #88
• The Arconia Dev Services are based on Testcontainers (no Docker Compose). They can also run on Podman (that's the container runtime I use). I wrote an article a while ago on how to set up Podman for Java development, covering also how to configure it for using it together with Testcontainers and Compose from Spring Boot. In case it might be useful to you, here's the link: https://www.thomasvitale.com/podman-desktop-for-java-development/
• I have registered a feature request to add support for a Log4j2 OpenTelemetry Bridge. You can follow that issue for updates on when it will be released: [OpenTelemetry] Support Log4j2 OpenTelemetry Bridge #89.

About the issue you found after excluding the Arconia OpenTelemetry Logback Bridge, I think it's due to the fact that the dependency was excluded from the Arconia Spring Boot Starter instead of the Arconia OpenTelemetry Spring Boot Starter. If you move it, the dependency should be correctly excluded. I have added an example here of a project using Arconia OpenTelemetry with Log4j2 instead of Logback.

Also, if you use any of the other Arconia starters, you don't need the Arconia Spring Boot Starter, so you can remove it directly.

I hope that helps :)

[lfvjimisola]

Thanks! Forgot to answer. Got it working with the logs but can't see any tracing in Grafana. Will have a look at it next week most likely.