# OpenTelemetry GenAI Semantic Conventions (agents and MCP)

[9 · Account](/category/account/)

| OpenTelemetry GenAI Semantic Conventions (agents and MCP) |
| --- |
| Category | [Account](/category/account/) |
| Governed by | OpenTelemetry project (backed by the CNCF); developed in the open-telemetry/semantic-conventions-genai repository, which extends the core OpenTelemetry Semantic Conventions |
| Status | Status: Development (OpenTelemetry document status) on both the agent-spans and MCP documents; the repository has no tagged release |
| Phase | draft |
| Implementation | prototype |
| Adoption | unmeasured |
| Version | Development (unreleased; repository has no tags); builds on core semantic conventions v1.44.0 (2026-10-19) |
| Specification | [https://github.com/open-telemetry/semantic-conventions-genai/blob/main/docs/gen-ai/gen-ai-agent-spans.md](https://github.com/open-telemetry/semantic-conventions-genai/blob/main/docs/gen-ai/gen-ai-agent-spans.md) |
| Found at | None at the web layer; the conventions name attributes on OpenTelemetry spans and metrics that an agent's own instrumentation exports to its operator's tracing backend |
| Last checked | 2026-10-20 |
| Freshness | current · checked 2026-10-20 |
| Solves | Audit what an agent did |

OpenTelemetry GenAI Semantic Conventions (agents and MCP) is an agentic-web standard (document format) at step 9, Account, governed by OpenTelemetry project (backed by the CNCF); its own status is "Status: Development (OpenTelemetry document status) on both the agent-spans and MCP documents; the repository has no tagged release" (draft). It answers: What span, metric and attribute names should agent frameworks and MCP clients and servers emit, so traces of agent runs and tool calls line up across vendors? Adoption is unmeasured, last verified 2026-10-20.

[Account](/category/account/) OpenTelemetry's GenAI semantic conventions give agent frameworks and MCP implementations a shared vocabulary for telemetry: the names of spans, metrics and gen_ai.* attributes to emit when an agent is created or invoked, plans, runs a workflow, calls a tool, loads a skill or runs a command [[1]](#ref-1). A separate MCP document defines client and server spans, how trace context is propagated over MCP, and four duration metrics for operations and sessions on each side [[2]](#ref-2). With the same names, a trace that crosses frameworks and MCP servers can be followed and audited in one tracing backend.

## Overview
The conventions live in their own repository, open-telemetry/semantic-conventions-genai (Apache-2.0, created 2026-05-05), which extends the core OpenTelemetry Semantic Conventions and keeps reference implementations alongside the spec [[3]](#ref-3). Both documents read here are marked Development, OpenTelemetry's least stable document status, and the repository has no tagged release, so names may still change [[1]](#ref-1)[[2]](#ref-2)[[3]](#ref-3).

This is an account-step record: it does not decide who an agent is or what it may do, only how what it did is recorded. Nothing is exposed at a website origin, so there is no probe. Which frameworks emit these conventions today was not counted in this pass.

## Discovery and probe

None at the web layer; the conventions name attributes on OpenTelemetry spans and metrics that an agent's own instrumentation exports to its operator's tracing backend

```
NONE
parse:
on absent: Telemetry naming lives inside an operator's tracing pipeline; nothing can be observed from a site's public endpoints.
```

Not probed live: not-http. Telemetry naming conventions inside an operator's tracing pipeline; no origin artefact.

## History
- 2026-10-20 — added from gap scout 2026-10-20; verified against open-telemetry/semantic-conventions-genai (docs/gen-ai/gen-ai-agent-spans.md, docs/gen-ai/mcp.md, README and repository metadata)

## Instances

No instances recorded yet.

## See also

## References

- gen-ai-agent-spans.md, Status: Development, defines spans for create_agent, invoke_agent (client and internal), invoke workflow, plan, execute_tool, load skill, read skill resource and command execution, using gen_ai.* attributes such as gen_ai.operation.name and gen_ai.agent.name. — [https://github.com/open-telemetry/semantic-conventions-genai/blob/main/docs/gen-ai/gen-ai-agent-spans.md](https://github.com/open-telemetry/semantic-conventions-genai/blob/main/docs/gen-ai/gen-ai-agent-spans.md) (2026-10-19) VERIFIED
- mcp.md, Status: Development, defines MCP client and server spans with context propagation, the metrics mcp.client.operation.duration, mcp.server.operation.duration, mcp.client.session.duration and mcp.server.session.duration, and examples for stdio and Streamable HTTP transports; it links core semantic conventions v1.44.0. — [https://github.com/open-telemetry/semantic-conventions-genai/blob/main/docs/gen-ai/mcp.md](https://github.com/open-telemetry/semantic-conventions-genai/blob/main/docs/gen-ai/mcp.md) (2026-10-19) VERIFIED
- The repository (Apache-2.0, created 2026-05-05, last pushed 2026-10-19, no tags) says it extends the core OpenTelemetry Semantic Conventions with GenAI, MCP and provider-specific conventions, generated from YAML models with Weaver, and keeps reference implementations under reference/. — [https://github.com/open-telemetry/semantic-conventions-genai](https://github.com/open-telemetry/semantic-conventions-genai) (2026-10-19) VERIFIED

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