NodeJS auto-instrumentation: Allow disabling specific instrumentations with environment variables

[FredrikAugust]

Describe the solution you'd like to see

We would like to keep all instrumentations active except for redis-4. This is something that is possible with the Java SDK, but currently not with the JavaScript SDK, using the OTEL_INSTRUMENTATION_[NAME]_ENABLED environment variables.

Something like this is possible for the resource detectors so a solution akin to that would be amazing.

Describe alternatives you've considered

As we're using the Kubernetes OTEL Agent Operator we are AFAIK limited to environment variables in terms of configuration of the autoinstrumentation so the only other solution I've thought of is disabling the instrumentation all-together.

Additional context

I'll happily contribute to this if you'd like:)

[FredrikAugust]

Alright, we just confirmed that disabling the OTEL instrumentation no longer produces the error described above. Should I create a separate issue for that as it's likely a redis issue?

[rpesk]

I second this. It's really annoying having to implement manual configuration file for tracing just to disable/enable single instrumentation. Implementation for this should not be complex at all, as @FredrikAugust mentioned, it's already done for resource detectors.

[github-actions]

This issue is stale because it has been open 60 days with no activity. Remove stale label or comment or this will be closed in 14 days.

[FredrikAugust]

I don't think this would be a lot of work, and would allow people to control what instrumentations are being used so I would love to see this implemented!

[hamin]

Can we please get this in?

[atsu85]

My use-case

I need this feature, because I can't disable the integrations from the code and application startup is a lot slower with all integrations enabled (specially if CPU is limited).

I can't disable from code, because I'm using k8s opentelemetry operator, that loads all instrumentations, so applications that use it can't customize it.

Alternative solutions

One option for me would be to solve the issue in opentelemetry-operator, but i think it would be bad idea:

• it wouldn't help solving this issue for developers that use @opentelemetry/auto-instrumentations-node directly instead of k8s opentelemetry operator.
• the env-variable naming convention that might be adopted by opentelemetry-operator might be adopted in this project, and it might cause confusion later

My preferred solution

I'd prefer it if this library also supported disabling instrumentations via environment variables (currently it only supports disabling via inputConfigs object passed to getNodeAutoInstrumentations function).

Let's get ready for the PR - environment variable naming conventions

If we could agree upon a naming convention, i could send a PR to implement it. For example @TylerHelmuth mentioned that Java, Python and .Net all use environment variables for that purpose, but their naming conventions are different.
For this library I'm considering one of the following approaches

Single environment variable like used for configuring node resource detectors

One option would be to have single variable that lists enabled instrumentations (like configuring resource detectors via OTEL_NODE_RESOURCE_DETECTORS):

• OTEL_NODE_INSTRUMENTATIONS=http,aws-sdk,nestjs-core

Separate environment variables, like used in Java, Python and .Net SDKs

• format: OTEL_NODE_INSTRUMENTATION_[NAME]_ENABLED=false
• exampleOTEL_NODE_INSTRUMENTATION_AWS_SDK_ENABLED=false to disable @opentelemetry/instrumentation-aws-sdk

where NAME is a mapping from npm package name

like @opentelemetry/instrumentation-aws-sdk -> AWS_SDK, because @ isn't valid character in environment variable, and all default instrumentations have @opentelemetry/instrumentation- prefix

Then it would be possible to derive the name of the environment variable to check based on name of the package to enable/disable.

Related issues:

• Is it possible to disable pg-pool instrumentation? #686 - issue from the same project (automatically closed because of no activity)
• Support to disable specific library or middleware instrumentation via environment variable #1331 - issue from the same project (automatically closed because of no activity)
• Allow disabling nodejs auto-instrumentations via environment variables opentelemetry-operator#2622 - from opentelemetry-operator repo that uses this library

[f3l1x98]

@atsu85 That is quite a coincidence because I have started looking into adding this feature a few days ago and have started with the implementation today.
This is my current implementation and I would have created a PR tomorrow.

[hamin]

@atsu85 @f3l1x98 yes please! Let's please get this in!

[atsu85]

@f3l1x98,

and have started with the implementation today.

sorry, I didn't notice your comment before i already created the PR (includes test and documentation).

@hamin and @f3l1x98, please have a look!

[atsu85]

FYI: i added auto-instrumentation slowness investigation results summary to my PR - perhaps someone stumbling upon this issue might find it useful as well to understand the startup slowness better