update-otel-deps

Update OpenTelemetry collector dependencies in datadog-agent.

Arguments: $ARGUMENTS — optional <target-version> (e.g. v0.125.0). Note: inv collector.update always upgrades to the latest published OTel version; if a specific version is requested, a manual search-and-replace is needed instead (see Manual Step 1).

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Step 0 — Check the automated workflow first

A scheduled GitHub Actions workflow (.github/workflows/collector-generate-and-update.yml) runs every other Wednesday and automatically opens a draft PR with the OTel update. Always check this before doing anything manually.

0a — Find the most recent run

unset GITHUB_TOKEN
gh run list --workflow=collector-generate-and-update.yml --branch=main --limit=5 \
  --json databaseId,status,conclusion,createdAt,event,displayTitle

If the latest run succeeded: find and review the auto-generated draft PR (Step 0c), then use /dd:ci:fix to fix any remaining CI failures and undraft.

If the latest run failed: go to Step 0b to diagnose and fix before falling back to a manual update.

If no run has ever succeeded or the workflow looks consistently broken: check #opentelemetry-agent and then fall back to Manual Step 1.

0b — Diagnose a workflow failure

Check #otel-agent-ops for the failure notification posted by the workflow; it includes a direct link to the failed run. Then fetch the logs:

RUN_ID=<id from step 0a>
unset GITHUB_TOKEN
gh run view $RUN_ID --log-failed 2>&1 | grep -E "error|Error|failed|exit code|XDG|bazel|OCB" | head -40

Common workflow failures and fixes:

Symptom in logs	Cause	Fix
XDG_CACHE_HOME () must denote a directory in CI or exit code 2 on bazel mod tidy	Set up Bazel cache step missing or not running before collector.update	Ensure the .github/actions/bazel-cache step appears before Run Collector Update Script in the workflow
Branch named update-otel-collector-dependencies- (empty version)	os.environ in the Python subprocess doesn't propagate back to the shell; the old echo "OCB_VERSION=$OCB_VERSION" reads a blank value	Ensure the workflow extracts the version from tasks/collector.py after the update: OCB_VERSION=$(grep -m1 'OCB_VERSION = ' tasks/collector.py | grep -oP '"\K[^"]+')
permission denied / HTTP 403 from dd-octo-sts-action	Workflow running from a non-main branch	The octo-sts policy only grants tokens on main; always trigger via schedule or gh workflow run … --ref main

After fixing the workflow, commit to main and re-trigger:

unset GITHUB_TOKEN
gh workflow run collector-generate-and-update.yml --ref main
gh run watch

If the workflow infrastructure succeeds but the resulting changes break CI (golden file mismatches, OCB build errors, etc.), that means the OTel version bump itself needs manual fixes. Proceed to Manual Step 2 using the auto-generated PR's branch as your working branch — don't start a new branch from scratch.

0c — Find and review the auto-generated PR

unset GITHUB_TOKEN
gh pr list --search "Update OTel Collector dependencies" --state open \
  --json number,title,url,headRefName

Review the diff, run /dd:ci:fix to fix CI failures, then undraft and request review once CI is green.

If a specific target version was requested that differs from what the workflow produced, fall back to Manual Step 1.

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Manual Step 1 — Run the update

Use this only when: the automated workflow has a persistent infrastructure failure that can't be fixed quickly, or a specific target version (not latest) is requested.

dda inv collector.update   # bumps go.mod + OCB YAML files to latest OTel version
dda inv collector.generate # regenerates OTel Agent code from the new manifests
dda inv components.lint-components --fix
dda inv tidy               # reconcile transitive dependencies
dda inv modules.add-all-replace  # must run AFTER tidy (see note below)
bazel run //:go_mod_tidy_all
dda inv generate-licenses  # update license inventory

Run modules.add-all-replace after tidy, not before. collector.generate rewrites comp/otelcol/collector-contrib/impl/go.mod with short-form replace paths (=> ../../../logs-library) where the repo standard is the canonical form (=> ../../../../comp/logs-library). Running add-all-replace before tidy leaves the short form in place and check_modules_replace fails in CI. Verify it converged by re-running it and confirming no go.mod changes.

read_old_version trusts the OCB manifest, which can be stale. collector.update search-replaces the version recorded in comp/otelcol/collector-contrib/impl/manifest.yaml. If someone bumped the Go deps directly without running collector.update (as #53984 did), the manifest lags and every file referencing the actual previous version is silently skipped. Always compare the manifest version against a real dependency before trusting the bump: grep 'otelcol v' go.mod.

If a specific version was requested, skip inv collector.update and do a repo-wide search-and-replace of the old version string (find it in tasks/collector.py — the OCB_VERSION / OTEL_CONTRIB_VERSION constants). Then run the remaining commands above.

After the commands finish, scan for any files the task missed:

git diff HEAD --stat
OLD=$(git diff HEAD -- tasks/collector.py | grep '^-OCB_VERSION' | grep -oP '"[\d.]+"' | tr -d '"')
rg "$OLD" -g "*.go" -g "*.yml" -g "*.yaml" -g "*.mod" -g "*.sum" -l

Manually update any remaining files that still reference the old version.

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Manual Step 2 — Fix ddflareextension runtime config test failures

This is the most common failure. The DD flare extension tests compare OTel runtime config output against golden files. Any upstream config field change breaks them.

Run the test locally to get the actual diff:

dda inv test --targets=./comp/otelcol/ddflareextension/impl/... --build-include=test,otlp -- -run TestGetConfDump

The test tag is required. --build-include replaces the default build-tag set rather than adding to it. With only otlp, the files gated behind //go:build test (configstore_test.go, extension_test.go, factory_test.go) never compile, so -run TestGetConfDump matches nothing — the run still reports "ALL TESTS PASSED" from the handful of untagged tests. Confirm the test really ran by checking test_output.json for "Test":"TestGetConfDump".

The failure output shows exactly which lines differ. Apply the diffs to the golden files in:

• comp/otelcol/ddflareextension/impl/testdata/ (unit test golden files)
• test/new-e2e/tests/otel/otel-agent/testdata/ (E2E test golden files — apply the same changes)

The E2E testdata mirrors the unit testdata for runtime config fields. Keep them in sync.

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Manual Step 3 — Fix OCB build test failures

The CI job datadog_otel_components_ocb_build verifies OTel modules can be built with OCB (OTel Collector Builder). Run it locally:

test/otel/testdata/ocb_build_script.sh
# or find the CI definition:
rg "ocb_build" .gitlab/ -g "*.yml" -l

Check logs under /tmp/otel-ci/ for the exact error.

Common causes and fixes:

Cause	Fix
Breaking changes in OTel core collector API	Update the affected Agent OTel modules to adapt (e.g. comp/otelcol/)
Incompatible changes between Agent and upstream datadogexporter/datadogconnector	1. Open a PR in opentelemetry-collector-contrib to point the upstream exporter at a commit version of Agent packages. 2. After merge, add replace statements in ocb_build_script.sh pointing to the contrib HEAD commit.
Missing OCB artifacts during collector release (transient)	Wait for upstream release artifacts to appear, or temporarily disable the CI job after discussing in #opentelemetry-agent.

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Manual Step 4 — Fix static quality gate failures

OTel upgrades often increase binary sizes (e.g. via gRPC version bumps in transitive deps). OTel upgrade PRs have a standing exemption from the binary size gates. To fix:

1. Find which gate(s) failed in CI output (they look like static_quality_gate_*).
2. Increase the breached max_on_disk_size / max_on_wire_size values in test/static/static_quality_gates.yml.
3. Commit the change and request review from #agent-delivery-reviews.

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Manual Step 5 — Fix conflicting transitive dependencies

OTel collector updates dependencies more aggressively than datadog-agent. A version bump may force a newer version of a transitive dep (commonly docker or k8s packages) that has breaking API changes.

Preferred fix: Update Agent code to use the newer API required by OTel's transitive dep version. Look at the build errors after inv tidy to find which symbols changed.

Fallback: Pin the old version with a replace directive in the relevant go.mod:

replace github.com/docker/docker => github.com/docker/docker v24.0.x+incompatible

Then run dda inv tidy again. Use this only when upgrading the Agent code is not feasible in the same PR.

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Manual Step 6 — Validate and open a PR

dda inv linter.go --targets=./comp/otelcol/...                                        # lint the changed OTel components
dda inv test --targets=./comp/otelcol/ddflareextension/impl/... --build-include=test,otlp  # confirm tests pass

--targets=./comp/otelcol/... only covers the root module. Several OTel packages are separate Go modules and are invisible to that invocation — it will report "0 issues" while they are silently unlinted. An upstream API change typically breaks exactly these. Lint each one in its own module context:

for m in comp/otelcol/otlp/components/datadogconfig \
         comp/otelcol/otlp/components/exporter/serializerexporter \
         comp/otelcol/otlp/components/processor/infraattributesprocessor; do
  dda inv linter.go --module="$m"
done

Find the full list with find comp/otelcol -name go.mod. Note that comp/host-profiler also consumes OTel APIs and is gated behind //go:build linux, so it cannot be linted from macOS without a x86_64-linux-gnu-gcc cross toolchain — rely on CI's lint_linux-x64 for it.

Upstream API moves

When a symbol goes undefined after the bump, it has usually been promoted from an experimental x-prefixed package into its stable counterpart rather than deleted. Confirm before rewriting call sites, then rename:

rg -n "^func Validate|^type Validator" "$(go env GOMODCACHE)"/go.opentelemetry.io/collector/confmap@v1.64.0/*.go

Seen in v0.158.0: xconfmap.Validate / xconfmap.Validator → confmap.Validate / confmap.Validator (identical signatures). This breaks lint_*, bazel:test:*, and build_host_profiler_binary_* together, so a large fan-out of failures often has a single upstream cause.

Open a draft PR to let CI catch any remaining failures. The PR title convention is: Update OTel Collector dependencies to v<VERSION>

Once the PR is open, run /dd:ci:fix to automatically fetch, analyze, and fix any remaining CI failures. If issues are not covered by the troubleshooting steps above, post in #opentelemetry-agent.

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Success checklist

• Automated workflow checked — succeeded (auto-PR reviewed) or failure diagnosed and fixed
• dda inv collector.update + collector.generate + tidy + generate-licenses all completed without error (automated or manual)
• modules.add-all-replace run after tidy and confirmed idempotent (re-run produces no go.mod diff)
• No remaining references to the old OTel version in tracked files — check the actual dep version, not just the manifest's
• ddflareextension unit + E2E golden files updated and tests pass (with the test build tag)
• Separate OTel Go modules linted individually with --module= (not just --targets=./comp/otelcol/...)
• test/fakeintake/version/VERSION bumped if tidy touched test/fakeintake/go.mod
• Release note added under releasenotes/notes/ (or changelog/no-changelog applied)
• OCB build script succeeds (or known issue tracked)
• Static quality gate limits raised if breached (exemption approved)
• Draft PR open and CI green (use /dd:ci:fix for any remaining failures)