Micrometer Tracing - Quick Reference

Full Reference: See advanced.md for custom ObservationConvention, baggage propagation, logging integration, metrics, async tracing, and testing patterns.

Deep Knowledge: Use mcp__documentation__fetch_docs with technology: micrometer-tracing for comprehensive documentation.

Dependencies

<!-- Micrometer Tracing Bridge (choose one) -->
<!-- For Brave (Zipkin) -->
<dependency>
    <groupId>io.micrometer</groupId>
    <artifactId>micrometer-tracing-bridge-brave</artifactId>
</dependency>

<!-- For OpenTelemetry -->
<dependency>
    <groupId>io.micrometer</groupId>
    <artifactId>micrometer-tracing-bridge-otel</artifactId>
</dependency>

<!-- Reporter (choose one) -->
<dependency>
    <groupId>io.zipkin.reporter2</groupId>
    <artifactId>zipkin-reporter-brave</artifactId>
</dependency>

Configuration

spring:
  application:
    name: order-service

management:
  tracing:
    sampling:
      probability: 1.0  # Sample 100% in dev, lower in prod
  zipkin:
    tracing:
      endpoint: http://localhost:9411/api/v2/spans

logging:
  pattern:
    level: "%5p [${spring.application.name:},%X{traceId:-},%X{spanId:-}]"

Core Concepts

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Trace (End-to-End Request)                                  │
│ TraceId: abc123                                             │
│                                                             │
│  ┌──────────────────┐                                       │
│  │ Span: API Gateway│ SpanId: 001 (Parent)                 │
│  └────────┬─────────┘                                       │
│           │                                                 │
│  ┌────────▼─────────┐  ┌─────────────────┐                 │
│  │ Span: Order Svc  │  │ Span: User Svc  │                 │
│  │ SpanId: 002      │  │ SpanId: 003     │                 │
│  └──────────────────┘  └─────────────────┘                 │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Automatic Instrumentation

Spring Boot 3 auto-instruments:

• HTTP Server (Spring MVC, WebFlux)
• HTTP Client (RestTemplate, WebClient, RestClient)
• JDBC, Kafka, RabbitMQ, Redis, MongoDB
• Scheduled Tasks

Using Observation API

@Service
@RequiredArgsConstructor
public class OrderService {

    private final ObservationRegistry observationRegistry;

    public Order processOrder(OrderRequest request) {
        return Observation.createNotStarted("order.process", observationRegistry)
            .lowCardinalityKeyValue("order.type", request.getType())
            .highCardinalityKeyValue("order.id", request.getId())
            .observe(() -> {
                Order order = createOrder(request);
                validateOrder(order);
                return saveOrder(order);
            });
    }
}

Using @Observed Annotation

@Configuration
public class ObservationConfig {
    @Bean
    public ObservedAspect observedAspect(ObservationRegistry registry) {
        return new ObservedAspect(registry);
    }
}

@Service
public class PaymentService {

    @Observed(
        name = "payment.process",
        contextualName = "process-payment",
        lowCardinalityKeyValues = {"payment.method", "credit_card"}
    )
    public PaymentResult processPayment(PaymentRequest request) {
        return paymentGateway.charge(request);
    }
}

HTTP Client Tracing

@Configuration
public class RestClientConfig {
    @Bean
    public RestClient restClient(RestClient.Builder builder) {
        return builder
            .baseUrl("http://order-service")
            .build();  // Auto-instrumented in Spring Boot 3
    }
}

Best Practices

Do	Don't
Use low cardinality for tags	High cardinality in metrics
Sample appropriately in prod	100% sampling in production
Propagate context in async	Lose trace context
Use meaningful span names	Generic names like "process"
Include traceId in logs	Log without correlation

Production Configuration

management:
  tracing:
    sampling:
      probability: 0.1  # Sample 10% in production
  zipkin:
    tracing:
      endpoint: ${ZIPKIN_URL:http://zipkin:9411}/api/v2/spans
  metrics:
    tags:
      application: ${spring.application.name}
      environment: ${ENVIRONMENT:development}

Checklist

• Sampling rate configured
• Trace exporter configured (Zipkin/Jaeger/OTLP)
• Logging includes traceId/spanId
• Baggage propagation configured
• Async context propagation working
• Custom observations for business ops
• Metrics exported to monitoring
• Health checks include tracing
• Error tracking in spans
• Performance overhead measured

Reference

• Micrometer Tracing Docs
• Spring Boot Observability