Error

Error Attributes

Attribute	Type	Description	Examples
error.type	string	Describes a class of error the operation ended with. [1]	timeout; java.net.UnknownHostException; server_certificate_invalid; 500

[1]: The error.type SHOULD be predictable and SHOULD have low cardinality. Instrumentations SHOULD document the list of errors they report.

The cardinality of error.type within one instrumentation library SHOULD be low. Telemetry consumers that aggregate data from multiple instrumentation libraries and applications should be prepared for error.type to have high cardinality at query time when no additional filters are applied.

If the operation has completed successfully, instrumentations SHOULD NOT set error.type.

If a specific domain defines its own set of error identifiers (such as HTTP or gRPC status codes), it’s RECOMMENDED to:

• Use a domain-specific attribute
• Set error.type to capture all errors, regardless of whether they are defined within the domain-specific set or not.

error.type has the following list of well-known values. If one of them applies, then the respective value MUST be used, otherwise a custom value MAY be used.