sqlcommenter

This is an example of how to use OpenTelemetry Python instrumention with sqlcommenter to enrich database query statements with contextual information. For more information on sqlcommenter concepts, see:

The source files of this example are available here. This example uses Docker to manage a database server and OpenTelemetry collector.

Run MySQL server

A running MySQL server with general logs enabled will store query statements with context resulting from the sqlcommenter feature enabled in this example.

cd books_database
docker build -t books-db .
docker run -d --name books-db -p 3366:3306 books-db
cd ..

Check that the run is working and the general log is available:

docker exec -it books-db tail -f /var/log/general.log

Run OpenTelemetry Collector

Running the OpenTelemetry collector will show the MySQL instrumentor’s comment-in-span-attribute feature, which this example has also enabled.

docker run \
    -p 4317:4317 \
    -v $(pwd)/collector-config.yaml:/etc/otel/config.yaml \
    otel/opentelemetry-collector-contrib:latest

Run the sqlcommenter example

Set up and activate a Python virtual environment. Install these dependencies of the sqlcommenter example:

pip install opentelemetry-sdk \
    opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-proto-grpc \
    opentelemetry-instrumentation-mysql \
    mysql-connector-python

Then, run this script, which instruments all mysql-connector calls with two sqlcommenter features opted in.

python instrumented_query.py

Note that OpenTelemetry instrumentation with sqlcommenter is also available for other Python database client drivers/object relation mappers (ORMs). See full list at instrumentation.

Check MySQL server general log and spans for sqlcomment

After running the query script, check the MySQL general log contents:

docker exec -it books-db tail -f /var/log/general.log

For each instrumented SELECT call, a query was made and logged with a sqlcomment appended. For example:

2025-09-02T18:49:06.981980Z   186 Query     SELECT * FROM authors WHERE id = 1 /*db_driver='mysql.connector%%3A9.4.0',dbapi_level='2.0',dbapi_threadsafety=1,driver_paramstyle='pyformat',mysql_client_version='9.4.0',traceparent='00-2c45248f2beefdd9688b0a94eb4ac9ee-4f3af9a825aae9b1-01'*/

In the running OpenTelemetry collector, you’ll also see one span per SELECT call. Each of those span’s trace ID and span ID will correspond to a query log sqlcomment. With the comment-in-attribute feature enabled, the span’s db.statement attribute will also contain the sqlcomment. For example:

ScopeSpans #0
ScopeSpans SchemaURL: https://opentelemetry.io/schemas/1.11.0
InstrumentationScope opentelemetry.instrumentation.mysql 0.57b0
Span #0
    Trace ID       : 2c45248f2beefdd9688b0a94eb4ac9ee
    Parent ID      :
    ID             : 4f3af9a825aae9b1
    Name           : SELECT
    Kind           : Client
    Start time     : 2025-09-02 18:49:06.982341 +0000 UTC
    End time       : 2025-09-02 18:49:06.98463 +0000 UTC
    Status code    : Unset
    Status message :
Attributes:
    -> db.system: Str(mysql)
    -> db.name: Str(books)
    -> db.statement: Str(SELECT * FROM authors WHERE id = %s /*db_driver='mysql.connector%%3A9.4.0',dbapi_level='2.0',dbapi_threadsafety=1,driver_paramstyle='pyformat',mysql_client_version='9.4.0',traceparent='00-2c45248f2beefdd9688b0a94eb4ac9ee-4f3af9a825aae9b1-01'*/)
    -> db.user: Str(books)
    -> net.peer.name: Str(localhost)
    -> net.peer.port: Int(3366)

References