Stability and Production Readiness of Instrumentation CRD (v1alpha1)

[Ranganatha-D]

🧩 Background

We are currently evaluating the Instrumentation Custom Resource Definition (CRD) for managing auto-instrumentation across our clusters. We noticed the current API version is v1alpha1.

❓ Questions

I would like to get confirmation from the maintainers regarding the following:

1. Production Readiness: Is the v1alpha1 version recommended for production environments?
2. API Stability: Are there significant breaking changes planned for the Instrumentation spec in the near future?
3. Promotion Roadmap: Is there a timeline or a tracking issue for promoting this CRD to v1beta1 or v1?

🛠️ Environment Details

• OpenTelemetry Operator version: [latest]
• Kubernetes version: [ v1.33]
• Install Method: [Helm chart]

Additional Context

We are planning a large-scale rollout and want to ensure we are aligned with the project's long-term stability goals. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated!

[iblancasa]

There is some work in progress for a new version

• Support OTel declarative configuration in the Instrumentation resource #4093
• Instrumentation v1beta1 CRD with SDK schema #4583

[dayananda30]

@iblancasa, Does that mean it is not production-ready yet?

[swiatekm]

It is production ready, and will be maintained past the v1beta1 release. In principle, being at alpha allows us to do breaking changes to the CRD, but that hasn't actually happened in a long time - we're cognizant that it has a lot of users. The changes we're planning in v1beta1 will allow us to improve the webhook performance and eventually standardize on the Otel declarative configuration, but they won't break any of the existing functionality. @pavolloffay can you also chime in?

[pavolloffay]

I have just submitted RFC for v1bta1 #5079. As @swiatekm the v1alpha1 will continue to function and the new API will allow us introduce new features and clean the API.