README.md

OpenTelemetry Distributed Tracing

Language	C# (.NET 8)
SDK	Durable Task SDK

This sample shows how to wire up OpenTelemetry with the Durable Task SDK to visualize orchestration flows in Jaeger. It demonstrates trace correlation across an orchestrator, activities, and sub-orchestrations so you can see the full distributed trace of an order-processing workflow.

Prerequisites

• .NET 8 SDK
• Docker

Quick Run

1. Start the infrastructure (DTS emulator + Jaeger)

docker compose up -d

This launches:

• DTS Emulator on localhost:8080 (gRPC) and localhost:8082 (Dashboard)
• Jaeger on localhost:16686 (UI), localhost:4317 (OTLP gRPC), and localhost:4318 (OTLP HTTP)

2. Start the worker

dotnet run --project Worker

3. Run the client

In a separate terminal:

dotnet run --project Client

Viewing Traces

1. Open the Jaeger UI at http://localhost:16686
2. Select the durable-worker service from the dropdown
3. Click Find Traces
4. Click on a trace to see the full span tree — you'll see the orchestrator span with child spans for each activity (ValidateOrder, ProcessPayment, ShipOrder, SendNotification)

You can also view the orchestration status in the DTS Dashboard at http://localhost:8082.

How It Works

The worker registers the Microsoft.DurableTask activity source with OpenTelemetry and exports spans via OTLP to Jaeger. The Durable Task SDK automatically creates spans for orchestrations and activities, so you get distributed tracing out of the box.

Key configuration in Worker/Program.cs:

builder.Services.AddOpenTelemetry()
    .ConfigureResource(resource => resource.AddService("durable-worker"))
    .WithTracing(tracing =>
    {
        tracing
            .AddSource("Microsoft.DurableTask")
            .AddOtlpExporter();
    });

Clean Up

docker compose down

Learn More

See docs/observability.md for more details on observability with the Durable Task Scheduler.