opentelemetry-container-distro

What it is and what it does

opentelemetry-container-distro is a preconfigured OpenTelemetry distribution designed to simplify telemetry setup in containerized environments. It extends the standard opentelemetry-distro by bundling three resource detectors—for Docker, Kubernetes, and process-level attributes—so they are automatically discovered and attached to telemetry data without manual configuration. This saves boilerplate when deploying observability to containers.

The package depends on seven OpenTelemetry components: opentelemetry-api, opentelemetry-sdk, opentelemetry-instrumentation, opentelemetry-exporter-otlp, opentelemetry-resourcedetector-docker, opentelemetry-resourcedetector-kubernetes, and opentelemetry-resourcedetector-process. It targets Python 3.8 and later. However, the package has not been updated since 2022-09-18 and is marked abandoned, meaning its dependencies may have drifted from the current OpenTelemetry ecosystem.

Use it for:

• Automatically inject Docker container metadata into traces and metrics without manual resource configuration.
• Detect and attach Kubernetes pod and cluster attributes to observability signals in containerized deployments.
• Simplify OpenTelemetry setup in container-native applications by bundling common resource detectors in one distro.
• Establish baseline process-level telemetry alongside container context in multi-container systems.

Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying

Provides an OpenTelemetry distribution that automatically detects and configures container environment attributes for Docker and Kubernetes deployments.

No. The package is abandoned (last commit 2022-09-18, no updates for over three years) and its dependencies have likely evolved significantly. For new projects, use the current opentelemetry-distro and add resource detectors explicitly. For existing deployments already running this version, evaluate whether upstream OpenTelemetry updates have introduced breaking changes before upgrading other components.

Install

opentelemetry-container-distro on PyPI

pip install opentelemetry-container-distro

uv add opentelemetry-container-distro

poetry add opentelemetry-container-distro

Installing opentelemetry-container-distro

Before you install

Low install friction with a pure-Python wheel, but the package is abandoned—last updated 2022-09-18 with no commits since then. Relies on seven runtime dependencies that may have evolved independently.

License in practice

MIT license permits commercial and private use with minimal restrictions, making it safe to adopt from a licensing perspective.

Quickstart

pip install opentelemetry-container-distro

from opentelemetry.sdk.resources import get_aggregated_resource_from_envvar
from opentelemetry.sdk.trace import TracerProvider

resource = get_aggregated_resource_from_envvar()
tracer_provider = TracerProvider(resource=resource)

Requires Python 3.8 or later; depends on opentelemetry-api, opentelemetry-sdk, opentelemetry-exporter-otlp, opentelemetry-instrumentation, and the three resource detectors (docker, kubernetes, process).

Verify before relying

• Whether the bundled resource detectors remain compatible with current OpenTelemetry SDK versions.
• Whether the package's configuration behavior fully matches the current opentelemetry-distro standard.
• Active maintenance status of the upstream OpenTelemetry dependencies this package relies on.

Package facts

Evidence: opentelemetry_container_distro-0.2.0-py3-none-any.whl

Tags

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