Trace Context & `traceparent` adherence for easier distributed tracing adoption

[dillonstreator]

Problem Statement

Enabling distributed tracing with Sentry is currently not as frictionless as it could be. Specifically, lack of strict adherence to the traceparent spec in some cases requires extra steps and in others, such as when external systems require strict traceparent adherence, does not allow tracing.

https://github.com/getsentry/sentry-javascript/blob/84baeb1847b0cd90af43ba8b29517b1b6cb24854/packages/core/src/tracing/span.ts#L539-L547
https://github.com/getsentry/sentry-javascript/blob/84baeb1847b0cd90af43ba8b29517b1b6cb24854/packages/core/src/utils/spanUtils.ts#L28-L36
https://github.com/getsentry/sentry-javascript/blob/84baeb1847b0cd90af43ba8b29517b1b6cb24854/packages/utils/src/tracing.ts#L117-L130
https://github.com/getsentry/sentry-python/blob/ad86d619db0d6f742d6b5abddbc466bf64d5cd93/sentry_sdk/scope.py#L279-L302

Solution Brainstorm

• Update the internal Sentry API server to look for a traceparent header and fallback to Sentry-Trace
• Update client SDKs and SDK integrations that hook into external requests to send a traceparent header alongside the Sentry-Trace header with strict adherence to the format described in the spec https://www.w3.org/TR/trace-context/#traceparent-header
  • /^([0-9a-f]{2})-([0-9a-f]{32})-([0-9a-f]{16})-[0-9a-f]{2})?$/

Product Area

Other

[getsantry]

Assigning to @getsentry/support for routing ⏲️

[getsantry]

Routing to @getsentry/product-owners-performance for triage ⏲️

[AbhiPrasad]

Hey @dillonstreator thanks for writing in! We have plans to support the traceparent header better, this is being tracked here: getsentry/team-sdks#41

Please follow along that issue (plus related sdk issues) to get progress updates. Thanks!