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You can also use the Java agent to instrument your Spring Boot application. For the pros and cons, see Java zero-code instrumentation.

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The OpenTelemetry Spring Boot starter works with Spring Boot 2.6+ and 3.1+, and Spring Boot native image applications. The opentelemetry-java-examples/spring-native repository contains an example of a Spring Boot Native image application instrumented using the OpenTelemetry Spring Boot starter.

A Bill of Material (BOM) ensures that versions of dependencies (including transitive ones) are aligned.

To ensure version alignment across all OpenTelemetry dependencies, you must import the opentelemetry-instrumentation-bom BOM when using the OpenTelemetry starter.

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When using Maven, import the OpenTelemetry BOMs before any other BOMs in your project. For example, if you import the spring-boot-dependencies BOM, you have to declare it after the OpenTelemetry BOMs.

Gradle selects the latest version of a dependency when multiple BOMs, so the order of BOMs is not important.

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The following example shows how to import the OpenTelemetry BOMs using Maven:

<dependencyManagement>
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>io.opentelemetry.instrumentation</groupId>
            <artifactId>opentelemetry-instrumentation-bom</artifactId>
            <version>{{% param vers.instrumentation %}}</version>
            <type>pom</type>
            <scope>import</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
</dependencyManagement>

With Gradle and Spring Boot, you have two ways to import a BOM.

You can use the Gradle’s native BOM support by adding dependencies:

import org.springframework.boot.gradle.plugin.SpringBootPlugin

plugins {
  id("java")
  id("org.springframework.boot") version "3.2.O"
}

dependencies {
  implementation(platform(SpringBootPlugin.BOM_COORDINATES))
  implementation(platform("io.opentelemetry.instrumentation:opentelemetry-instrumentation-bom:{{% param vers.instrumentation %}}"))
}

The other way with Gradle is to use the io.spring.dependency-management plugin and to import the BOMs in dependencyManagement:

plugins {
  id("java")
  id("org.springframework.boot") version "3.2.O"
  id("io.spring.dependency-management") version "1.1.0"
}

dependencyManagement {
  imports {
    mavenBom("io.opentelemetry.instrumentation:opentelemetry-instrumentation-bom:{{% param vers.instrumentation %}}")
  }
}

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Be careful not to mix up the different ways of configuring things with Gradle. For example, don't use implementation(platform("io.opentelemetry.instrumentation:opentelemetry-instrumentation-bom:{{% param vers.instrumentation %}}")) with the io.spring.dependency-management plugin.

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Add the dependency given below to enable the OpenTelemetry starter.

The OpenTelemetry starter uses OpenTelemetry Spring Boot autoconfiguration.

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<dependency>
    <groupId>io.opentelemetry.instrumentation</groupId>
    <artifactId>opentelemetry-spring-boot-starter</artifactId>
</dependency>

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implementation("io.opentelemetry.instrumentation:opentelemetry-spring-boot-starter")

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