From f88760024e33054a4dbe03503d08b7e224433fae Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Circadian Date: Wed, 19 Aug 2026 00:59:40 +0200 Subject: [PATCH] docs: point the first-traces quickstart at auto-instrumentation and APM Two of the gaps #112 describes, in the one file where both are visible. The quickstart teaches manual span creation and never mentions auto-instrumentation, which for most services is the faster path and is already documented for six languages. A reader following this page writes code they probably do not need to write. This adds a tip above the example saying so and linking it, and deliberately keeps the manual example, because seeing a span built by hand is the point of the page. Its Next steps also send the reader to dashboards, agent tracing and Send Data, but never to Application Monitoring, so someone who has just produced their first traces is not told that service maps and RED metrics are built from them. That is the single link an APM reader most needs at that moment. No content is moved or reworded. Two additions to one file. Signed-off-by: Circadian --- .../content/docs/get-started/quickstart/first-traces.md | 8 ++++++++ 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+) diff --git a/docs/starlight-docs/src/content/docs/get-started/quickstart/first-traces.md b/docs/starlight-docs/src/content/docs/get-started/quickstart/first-traces.md index 4bd9c868..32f3e114 100644 --- a/docs/starlight-docs/src/content/docs/get-started/quickstart/first-traces.md +++ b/docs/starlight-docs/src/content/docs/get-started/quickstart/first-traces.md @@ -9,6 +9,13 @@ description: Instrument your application to send traces to the Observability Sta pip install opentelemetry-api opentelemetry-sdk opentelemetry-exporter-otlp ``` +:::tip[Most applications do not need this code] +The example below instruments a span by hand so you can see what a trace is made +of. For a real service, [auto-instrumentation](/docs/send-data/opentelemetry/auto-instrumentation/) +is usually the faster path: it emits HTTP, database and framework spans with no +code changes, and is available for Python, Java, Node.js, Go, .NET and Ruby. +::: + ## 2. Send traces ```python @@ -46,4 +53,5 @@ For other languages, see [Send Data](/docs/send-data/). - [Create Your First Dashboard](/docs/get-started/quickstart/first-dashboard/) - build custom visualizations - [Agent Tracing](/docs/ai-observability/agent-tracing/) - trace AI agent workflows with GenAI semantic conventions +- [Application Monitoring](/docs/apm/) - service maps and RED metrics built from the traces you just sent - [Send Data](/docs/send-data/) - more instrumentation options