Last updated: September 17, 2026
Overview
Dash0 extends the OpenTelemetry semantic conventions with dash0.* attributes, metrics, and events that are specific to the Dash0 platform.
Some of these conventions are automatically applied to your telemetry at ingestion time, while others are available for you to use in your own instrumentation or to query Dash0.
Several dash0.* metrics are synthetic metrics, that is they are metrics that are computed on-the-fly when you query them from ingested signal data, rather than being stored as independent time series.
Dash0 semantic convention names appear throughout the Dash0 UI — in explorer filters, metric queries, dashboard variables, and annotation tooltips: understanding them helps you write precise queries and build more informative dashboards.
The conventions are defined using OpenTelemetry Weaver, the same tool the OpenTelemetry project uses to manage the OpenTelemetry semantic conventions. The source registry and a full Weaver-rendered reference of the Dash0 semantic conventions are published on GitHub as a showcase of how to model custom semantic conventions with Weaver.
Attributes
Dash0 automatically attaches attributes to your telemetry at ingestion time. They identify the resource that emitted a signal, the authentication token used, or operational metadata like the operation name of a span.
Some attributes appear on multiple signal types (for example, dash0.resource.id is added to logs, spans, metrics and profiles), while others are specific to a single signal.
Metrics
Dash0 emits operational metrics that count and measure the signals it processes. These are useful for understanding ingestion volume, troubleshooting pipelines, and building cost-control dashboards.
Examples include dash0.spans (spans ingested), dash0.logs (log records ingested), and dash0.spam_filters.spans (spans dropped by spam filters).
Events
Dash0 defines events for key lifecycle moments such as service deployments. Events can be used as dashboard annotations to correlate releases with your metric and log data.