topic Re: The temporality configuration set up is not working for the OpenTelemetry Spring Boot starter in Open Q&A

Temporality configuration setup is not working for the OpenTelemetry Spring Boot starter

sivakumarp — Tue, 30 Dec 2025 12:13:47 GMT

Hi,

I've successfully integrated the OpenTelemetry Spring Boot Starter with my Java application, and everything is working smoothly.

Now, I'm exploring how to change the metrics' temporality to Delta. So far, I've attempted the following configuration steps:

1. Using application.yml

otel:
  service:
    name: my-service
  logs:
    exporter: none
  propagators: tracecontext
  exporter:
    otlp:
      protocol: http/protobuf
      traces:
        endpoint: https://base/api/v2/otlp/v1/traces
        exporter:
          interval: 60000
      metrics:
        endpoint: https://base/api/v2/otlp/v1/metrics
        aggregation_temporality:
          counter: delta      # or delta
        #          histogram: delta
        #          observable_gauge: cumulative
        exporter:
          interval: 60000
        enabled: true
      headers: Authorization=Api-Token token

2. Using env variable

OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_METRICS_TEMPORALITY_PREFERENCE

Unfortunately, none of the approaches I've tried so far have worked. Has anyone encountered a similar issue or found a working solution?

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated—thank you!

Re: The temporality configuration set up is not working for the OpenTelemetry Spring Boot starter

joaograssi — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 15:02:09 GMT

The application.yaml from Spring Boot follows the same property names as for the application.properties one.

For the latter, the temporality can be specified as:

otel.exporter.otlp.metrics.temporality.preference=DELTA

So, if using the YAML variant, you can do:

otel: service: name: my-service exporter: otlp: metrics: temporality: preference: DELTA

Also, to make the config smaller, if you are sending all telemetry types Dynatrace (traces, metrics and logs) you can shorten the config by using the top-level endpoint property. Like so:

otel: service: name: my-service exporter: otlp: protocol: http/protobuf endpoint: https://{environmentid}.live.dynatrace.com/api/v2/otlp headers: Authorization=Api-Token token metrics: temporality: preference: DELTA

For a full view of the SDK configuration, see: https://opentelemetry.io/docs/zero-code/java/spring-boot-starter/sdk-configuration/