GraphQL Instrumentation: Obtaining traceId from Active Context / Setting Active Context

[mannyluvstacos]

This is one of two questions that I mentioned in my introduction 🙂

---

apologies if I do not use all the right terms, I am still learning and trying to be precise. 🙇 Hopefully the working example I provided is helpful in clarification!

Question part 1.a

When using the 0.18.0 series of otel/instrumentation-graphql and otel/node how does one obtain the traceId associated with the spanContext used in the GraphQL Operations?

I would like to intercept and obtain the traceId of the active spanContext where the ApolloServer populates the GraphQL Operation Context ---located here in my example--- so that I may use the traceId as unique key in creating LaunchDarkly Users that are available to all GraphQL operations for feature flagging.

Through experimentation (and honestly sheer luck/curiosity in logging out GraphQL context) I learned that the Operation's Span and SpanContext are available within each resolver that does let me get the traceID associated with each operation, but that is less than ideal for my use case.

Question part 1.b

Is it possible to set the active spanContext that is then used by the GraphQL Operations?

I tried the following code example provided by @dyladan from a Slack thread in #otel-js and the span from the active context did not appear to be set.

//Code example
 span1 = api.trace.getTracerProvider('graphql').getTracer('graphql').startSpan('GraphQLContextSpan')

 let ctx = api.setSpan(api.context.active(), span1);
    api.context.with(ctx, () => {
    const s = api.getSpan(api.context.active());
    console.log('results', s === span1) //evaluates false

The current code that I have (that my working example is based off of) is using 0.11.0 of the libs and the following was how I obtained traceId and also the current span (pardon the optional chaining...copy pasta)

const traceID: string = provider
 ?.getTracer(process.env.TRACE_SERVICE_NAME)
 ?.getCurrentSpan()
 ?.context().traceId;

What am I missing or maybe performing incorrectly?

I look forward to hearing back and engaging with y'all! 😁

cc: @dyladan, @obecny (since I saw all your work on the GraphQL instrumentation), @vmarchaud (from our brief conversation on Slack)

Working Code Example to Highlight

I have created a working example of the problem I am trying to solve here:
ssh: [email protected]:mannyluvstacos/graphql-otel-test.git

code: https://github.com/mannyluvstacos/graphql-otel-test/blob/main/index.js

One should be able to git clone then run the following
(I used yarn, but npm should work too!)

git clone [email protected]:mannyluvstacos/graphql-otel-test.git
yarn
yarn dev //runs nodemon, graphQL playground on localhost:8080/graphql

or 

npm i
npm run dev

Context

Server: NodeJS + Fastify + Apollo-Server-Fastify

"dependencies": {
    "@opentelemetry/api": "^0.18.0",
    "@opentelemetry/exporter-jaeger": "^0.18.0",
    "@opentelemetry/exporter-zipkin": "^0.18.0",
    "@opentelemetry/instrumentation": "^0.18.0",
    "@opentelemetry/instrumentation-graphql": "^0.14.0",
    "@opentelemetry/instrumentation-grpc": "^0.18.0",
    "@opentelemetry/node": "^0.18.0",
    "@opentelemetry/tracing": "^0.18.0",
    "apollo-server-fastify": "^2.21.1",
    "fastify": "^2.14.1",
    "graphql": "^15.5.0",
    "pino": "^6.11.2"
  },

[vmarchaud]

The issue is that you didn't register the node sdk, so the context manager that makes everything work isn't enabled. You just need to add:

tracerProvider.register()

After this line and it should works (both for using getSpan and getting the traceId from the spanContext.

[mannyluvstacos]

Additionally,

api.getSpan(opentelemetry.api.context.active())?.context().traceId;

Gave me exactly what I needed and previous iterations of my work were not producing the traceId and I believe that was due to not having the appropriate packages up to date.

    "@opentelemetry/api": "^0.18.0",
    "@opentelemetry/core": "0.18.0",
    "@opentelemetry/exporter-collector-grpc": "^0.18.0",
    "@opentelemetry/instrumentation": "^0.18.0",
    "@opentelemetry/instrumentation-dns": "^0.14.0",
    "@opentelemetry/instrumentation-graphql": "^0.14.0",
    "@opentelemetry/instrumentation-grpc": "^0.18.0",
    "@opentelemetry/instrumentation-http": "^0.18.0",
    "@opentelemetry/node": "^0.18.0",
    "@opentelemetry/tracing": "^0.18.0",

Is what I am working with now and the code snippet gave me what I needed.

Thank you Valentin!