[feature] Add support for Entities #7661

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1. martincostello

   added the

   Feature

   issue type on Aug 20, 2026
2. martincostello commented on Sep 8, 2026

   

   martincostello

   on Sep 8, 2026

   MemberAuthor

   More actions

   I had Claude Code write a proof-of-concept implementation of the above to help guide further discussion around adding support for entities. The commit for the PoC which adds support for service and telemetry entities with console and OTLP export can be found here: martincostello@7f0d6d6

   The public API additions that fall out of that prototype are shown below:

   namespace OpenTelemetry.Resources;
   
   public sealed class Entity
   {
       public Entity(
           string type,
           IEnumerable<KeyValuePair<string, object>> identifyingAttributes,
           IEnumerable<KeyValuePair<string, object>>? descriptiveAttributes = null,
           string? schemaUrl = null);
   
       public string Type { get; }
       public IReadOnlyList<KeyValuePair<string, object>> IdentifyingAttributes { get; }
       public IReadOnlyList<KeyValuePair<string, object>> DescriptiveAttributes { get; }
       public string? SchemaUrl { get; }
   }
   
   public interface IEntityDetector
   {
       IEnumerable<Entity> Detect();
   }
   
   public partial class Resource
   {
       public Resource(
           IEnumerable<KeyValuePair<string, object>> attributes,
           string? schemaUrl,
           IEnumerable<Entity>? entities);
   
       public IReadOnlyList<Entity> Entities { get; }
   }
   
   public partial class ResourceBuilder
   {
       public ResourceBuilder AddEntityDetector(IEntityDetector entityDetector);
   }

   The PoC wired entity detection into resource detection (e.g. extending Resource and ResourceBuilder), but I'm not 100% convinced that's right approach. As they're in a different section of the spec, it seems to me that they should be their own "thing", but I'm open to being persuaded otherwise.
3. stevejgordon commented on Oct 21, 2026

   

   stevejgordon

   on Oct 21, 2026

   Contributor

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   FYI, there is now a Resource Provider (Development) in the Resource SDK spec. It runs the configured detectors, merges their results in configured order using the entity-aware merge algorithm, and is responsible for building a new Resource as async entity attributes resolve.

   That seems relevant to the open question in the PoC about whether entity detection belongs in ResourceBuilder or somewhere separate. The spec now points to the Resource Provider as the component that combines entity detection with resource detection and merging.

   Java has a first step in open-telemetry/opentelemetry-java#8865: an internal SdkResourceProvider that the tracer/meter/logger providers can share. It only handles constant resources for now. Refresh and async detection are deferred.

   For .NET, most of the static part is already covered by ResourceBuilder and GetResource(), so perhaps we should track the Resource Provider as part of this issue rather than separately?

   👍React with 👍1Reacted by Martin Costello