Add profiles data format by christos68k · Pull Request #4965 · open-telemetry/opentelemetry-specification

christos68k · 2026-03-19T13:14:52Z

Changes

Adds a data format description for OpenTelemetry profiles.

I took some content from the old OTEP but decided to leave all of the historical information out, both for clarity/focus and to improve readability (a technical specification doesn't read very well by nature).

We could add additional references and expand on design decisions in a future data-format-appendix.md document.

Also see: #4932 (This PR is a follow-up)

CC: @theletterf @tigrannajaryan @open-telemetry/profiling-maintainers @open-telemetry/profiling-approvers

For non-trivial changes, follow the change proposal process.

Related issues: #7874
CHANGELOG.md file updated for non-trivial changes
- For trivial changes, include [chore] in the PR title to skip the changelog check

Co-authored-by: Roger Coll <roger.coll@elastic.co>

Co-authored-by: Fabrizio Ferri-Benedetti <fabri.ferribenedetti@elastic.co>

aalexand

This looks great, thanks for this work!

Co-authored-by: Alexey Alexandrov <aalexand@users.noreply.github.com>

christos68k · 2026-03-24T16:30:30Z

@tigrannajaryan Can you please take another look? It'd be great to have this (and the parent PR here) merged before or close to the Alpha announcement.

tigrannajaryan

None of my comments are blocking.

Co-authored-by: Tigran Najaryan <4194920+tigrannajaryan@users.noreply.github.com>

github-actions · 2026-05-26T04:37:07Z

This PR was marked stale. It will be closed in 14 days without additional activity.

@theletterf

…4932) ## Changes This update takes into account the [recent introduction](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry.io/pull/9339/changes) of a profiles signal concepts [page](https://opentelemetry.io/docs/concepts/signals/profiles/), removes duplicate information and adds more relevant documentation. There is a follow-up PR [here](open-telemetry#4965) that adds the current data format page. CC: @theletterf @open-telemetry/profiling-maintainers @open-telemetry/profiling-approvers * [X] Related issues: [#7874](open-telemetry/opentelemetry.io#7874) * [X] [`CHANGELOG.md`](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-specification/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md) file updated for non-trivial changes * For trivial changes, include `[chore]` in the PR title to skip the changelog check --------- Co-authored-by: Felix Geisendörfer <felix@felixge.de>

@theletterf

…4932) ## Changes This update takes into account the [recent introduction](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry.io/pull/9339/changes) of a profiles signal concepts [page](https://opentelemetry.io/docs/concepts/signals/profiles/), removes duplicate information and adds more relevant documentation. There is a follow-up PR [here](open-telemetry#4965) that adds the current data format page. CC: @theletterf @open-telemetry/profiling-maintainers @open-telemetry/profiling-approvers * [X] Related issues: [#7874](open-telemetry/opentelemetry.io#7874) * [X] [`CHANGELOG.md`](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-specification/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md) file updated for non-trivial changes * For trivial changes, include `[chore]` in the PR title to skip the changelog check --------- Co-authored-by: Felix Geisendörfer <felix@felixge.de>

tigrannajaryan · 2026-06-02T19:52:52Z

@christos68k please resolve the conflicts.

github-actions · 2026-06-18T04:46:08Z

This PR was marked stale. It will be closed in 14 days without additional activity.

Co-authored-by: Florian Lehner <florianl@users.noreply.github.com>

tigrannajaryan · 2026-06-30T20:56:12Z

@christos68k can you fix failing actions?

christos68k · 2026-07-01T21:01:51Z

@christos68k can you fix failing actions?

All of them look like false positives.

tigrannajaryan · 2026-07-06T14:30:15Z

All of them look like false positives.

@christos68k what do you mean by a false positive? I looked at the link check failure and it seems like a genuine problem to me, for example:

Error:  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-configuration/main/schema-docs.md#batchspanprocessor- | Cannot find fragment: Fragment not found in document. Check if fragment exists or page structure

There is indeed no such fragment at that page since the content says "Schema documentation has moved".

christos68k · 2026-07-08T18:27:10Z

All of them look like false positives.

@christos68k what do you mean by a false positive? I looked at the link check failure and it seems like a genuine problem to me, for example:
Error:  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-configuration/main/schema-docs.md#batchspanprocessor- | Cannot find fragment: Fragment not found in document. Check if fragment exists or page structure
There is indeed no such fragment at that page since the content says "Schema documentation has moved".

@tigrannajaryan The markdown-link-check failures take place in files that this PR does not touch / link to (and is not in control of). If you look at recently merged PRs (e.g. #5197) you will see the exact same markdown-link-check failures there.

christos68k · 2026-07-09T13:10:56Z

@tigrannajaryan This PR should be ready for merge

### Context - Clarify that environment variable propagation operational guidance is non-normative and should be documented by language implementations. ([open-telemetry#5165](open-telemetry#5165)) - Clean up implementation guidelines for environment variable propagation carriers. ([open-telemetry#5166](open-telemetry#5166)) - Remove caching behavior suggestions for environment variable propagation carrier implementations. ([open-telemetry#5179](open-telemetry#5179)) - Mark "Environment Variables as Context Propagation Carriers" as Release Candidate. ([open-telemetry#5142](open-telemetry#5142)) ### Traces - Amend the description of Composite/Composable samplers. ([open-telemetry#5161](open-telemetry#5161)) ### Logs - Add ETW (Event Tracing for Windows) example mapping to the logs data model appendix, including the ETW level to `SeverityNumber` mapping. ([open-telemetry#5159](open-telemetry#5159)) ### Profiles - Add Profiles data model (data-model.md). ([open-telemetry#4965](open-telemetry#4965)) ### Supplementary Guidelines - Add non-normative supplementary guidelines for SDK self-observability. ([open-telemetry#5135](open-telemetry#5135)) ### OTEPs - Add OTEP proposing a central OpenTelemetry benchmarks repository. ([open-telemetry#5118](open-telemetry#5118)) - Introduce Policies into the specification. ([open-telemetry#4738](open-telemetry#4738)) --------- Co-authored-by: Copilot Autofix powered by AI <175728472+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>

Add profiles data model

89258ef

christos68k requested review from a team as code owners March 19, 2026 13:14

This was referenced Mar 19, 2026

Update profiles specification README.md and pprof.md #4932

Merged

Add documentation for Profiling open-telemetry/opentelemetry.io#7874

Closed

christos68k added 2 commits March 19, 2026 09:25

Update changelog

4bb9343

Update optional fields

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christos68k commented Mar 19, 2026

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Comment thread specification/profiles/data-format.md Outdated

Comment thread specification/profiles/data-format.md Outdated

Consistent capitalization when referring to OTLP Profiles

66b117d

tigrannajaryan reviewed Mar 19, 2026

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Comment thread specification/profiles/data-model.md Outdated

theletterf approved these changes Mar 20, 2026

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rogercoll approved these changes Mar 20, 2026

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christos68k and others added 6 commits March 20, 2026 17:52

Apply suggestions from code review

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Co-authored-by: Roger Coll <roger.coll@elastic.co>

Rename data-model.md to data-format.md

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Rename 'data model' to 'data format'

95665dc

Minor update to wording

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Update specification/profiles/data-format.md

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Co-authored-by: Fabrizio Ferri-Benedetti <fabri.ferribenedetti@elastic.co>

Update data-format.md link in mappings.md

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aalexand reviewed Mar 20, 2026

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aalexand approved these changes Mar 20, 2026

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Address review feedback

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Co-authored-by: Alexey Alexandrov <aalexand@users.noreply.github.com>

tigrannajaryan approved these changes Mar 24, 2026

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christos68k and others added 2 commits March 24, 2026 14:57

Address review feedback

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Co-authored-by: Tigran Najaryan <4194920+tigrannajaryan@users.noreply.github.com>

Add clarification for original_payload

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christos68k requested a review from jsuereth March 24, 2026 19:06

christos68k added 2 commits March 24, 2026 15:09

Fix wording

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Updating wording according to texlint

aea0a06

github-actions Bot added the Stale label May 26, 2026

chalin mentioned this pull request Jun 2, 2026

DRAFT Update opentelemetry-specification to unreleased v1.58.0-dev open-telemetry/opentelemetry.io#9982

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arminru mentioned this pull request Jun 2, 2026

chore: Add placeholder profiles/data-format.md to fix broken link (#5119) #5127

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arminru linked an issue Jun 2, 2026 that may be closed by this pull request

Broken link: specification/profiles/data-format.md does not exist #5119

Closed

christos68k mentioned this pull request Jun 2, 2026

Broken link: specification/profiles/data-format.md does not exist #5119

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github-actions Bot removed the Stale label Jun 3, 2026

github-actions Bot added the Stale label Jun 18, 2026

Merge remote-tracking branch 'upstream/main' into ck/profiles-data-model

3ab3675

christos68k requested a review from a team as a code owner June 30, 2026 14:16

christos68k and others added 2 commits June 30, 2026 10:28

Add KeyValue exclusion for textlint

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Co-authored-by: Florian Lehner <florianl@users.noreply.github.com>

Fix misspelling

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jmacd approved these changes Jun 30, 2026

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github-actions Bot removed the Stale label Jul 1, 2026

Merge branch 'main' into ck/profiles-data-model

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Fix KeyValue being flagged in textlint

91bab81

tigrannajaryan added this pull request to the merge queue Jul 9, 2026

Merged via the queue into open-telemetry:main with commit c3bf128 Jul 9, 2026
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carlosalberto mentioned this pull request Jul 10, 2026

Release 1.59.0 #5199

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