Snippets · Processors

Enforce required resource attributes (semantic conventions)

Telemetry nobody can attribute is noise you pay to store: dashboards group by service and environment, and a record without them lands in no team's view. This filter processor drops any log record, span or metric whose resource lacks one of the three attributes, so the gap shows up as missing data at the source instead of as unowned data in the backend.

OpenTelemetry Collector

OpenTelemetry Collector YAML

receivers:
  otlp:
    protocols:
      grpc:
        endpoint: 0.0.0.0:4317

processors:
  memory_limiter:
    check_interval: 1s
    limit_percentage: 80
    spike_limit_percentage: 25
  # Drops any record whose resource lacks one of the three attributes every
  # dashboard and alert here groups by. A record is dropped when ANY condition
  # is true.
  filter/enforce-semconv:
    error_mode: ignore
    logs:
      log_record:
        - resource.attributes["service.name"] == nil
        - resource.attributes["service.namespace"] == nil
        - resource.attributes["deployment.environment.name"] == nil
    traces:
      span:
        - resource.attributes["service.name"] == nil
        - resource.attributes["service.namespace"] == nil
        - resource.attributes["deployment.environment.name"] == nil
    metrics:
      metric:
        - resource.attributes["service.name"] == nil
        - resource.attributes["service.namespace"] == nil
        - resource.attributes["deployment.environment.name"] == nil
  batch:
    timeout: 5s

exporters:
  otlphttp:
    endpoint: https://your-backend:4318

service:
  pipelines:
    logs:
      receivers: [otlp]
      processors: [memory_limiter, filter/enforce-semconv, batch]
      exporters: [otlphttp]
    traces:
      receivers: [otlp]
      processors: [memory_limiter, filter/enforce-semconv, batch]
      exporters: [otlphttp]
    metrics:
      receivers: [otlp]
      processors: [memory_limiter, filter/enforce-semconv, batch]
      exporters: [otlphttp]

LinkMesh

LinkMesh has no built-in template for this job. Add it as a custom processor in raw mode, with filter as the component type and this body - the same lines as under filter/enforce-semconv in the collector config:

Custom processor body (filter)

error_mode: ignore
logs:
  log_record:
    - resource.attributes["service.name"] == nil
    - resource.attributes["service.namespace"] == nil
    - resource.attributes["deployment.environment.name"] == nil
traces:
  span:
    - resource.attributes["service.name"] == nil
    - resource.attributes["service.namespace"] == nil
    - resource.attributes["deployment.environment.name"] == nil
metrics:
  metric:
    - resource.attributes["service.name"] == nil
    - resource.attributes["service.namespace"] == nil
    - resource.attributes["deployment.environment.name"] == nil

How custom components are validated and rolled out: create a custom processor.

Download config.yamlValidated with otelcol-contrib v0.161.0 on 2026-10-26

Complete config files, each checked with the collector's own validate command (otelcol-contrib v0.161.0). Replace https://your-backend:4318 with your own OTLP endpoint before you run it.

Before and after

Example telemetry in, and what this exact config sent out when we ran it in otelcol-contrib v0.161.0. CI re-runs it on every change and fails if the output differs. Changed values are highlighted.

4 log records in, 1 log record out

Before
body
complete
resource.service.name
shop
resource.service.namespace
web
resource.deployment.environment.name
prod
After
body
complete
resource.service.name
shop
resource.service.namespace
web
resource.deployment.environment.name
prod
Before
body
no namespace
resource.service.name
shop
resource.deployment.environment.name
prod
After
Dropped
Before
body
old environment key
resource.service.name
shop
resource.service.namespace
web
resource.deployment.environment
prod
After
Dropped
Before
body
nothing set
After
Dropped

The gotcha

The OpenTelemetry semantic conventions renamed deployment.environment to deployment.environment.name, and anything still sending the old key gets dropped by this filter: in our test a record carrying deployment.environment, but not the new key, was dropped along with the incomplete ones - 4 records in, 1 out - and the collector log said nothing about any of the three drops.

Manage this across a fleet

LinkMesh manages collector configuration across a fleet from one self-hosted control plane, so a change like this is made once rather than host by host. The first 25 Collectors are free after a no-card registration in the OpenSight Customer Portal (5 without one).

Doing this in LinkMesh: Filter records on a route

Install LinkMesh →See all snippets