Update naming.md to clarify 'duration' definition#3543
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lahabana wants to merge 5 commits intoopen-telemetry:mainfrom
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Update naming.md to clarify 'duration' definition#3543lahabana wants to merge 5 commits intoopen-telemetry:mainfrom
lahabana wants to merge 5 commits intoopen-telemetry:mainfrom
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**time** and **duration** are close but slightly different ways to instrument times. There are plenty of examples in this doc with **duration** yet it wasn't defined in the instrument naming section. @jack-berg explained in [this comment](open-telemetry#816 (comment)) clearly the difference between **time** and **duration**. This attempts to update the documentation to persist this information by documenting **duration** and explaining when to use it compared to **time**. Part of open-telemetry#816
lmolkova
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Mar 14, 2026
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Thanks for the clarification, it makes sense, just left some comments to make it more precise
Co-authored-by: Liudmila Molkova <neskazu@gmail.com>
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Thanks for clarifying @lmolkova I've included your suggestions. |
lmolkova
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Mar 16, 2026
Co-authored-by: Liudmila Molkova <neskazu@gmail.com>
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@lmolkova updated. Changelog fails does it really make sense to add an entry in the Changelog for this? |
lmolkova
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Mar 25, 2026
lmolkova
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kamphaus
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Mar 25, 2026
This reverts commit 4b8ce00.
Signed-off-by: Charly Molter <charly.molter@konghq.com>
lmolkova
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Apr 3, 2026
trask
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Apr 3, 2026
| should be called `{operation name}.duration`. | ||
| For example, `http.server.request.duration` for the time taken to process each HTTP request. | ||
| The difference with `time` is that `time` is used to measure monotonically increasing total time, | ||
| whereas `duration` captures the aggregated elapsed time. |
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the word "aggregated" is a bit confusing here, maybe something like
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| whereas `duration` captures the aggregated elapsed time. | |
| whereas `duration` captures the elapsed time of discrete operations |
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@lahabana no need, I added label to skip changelog, adding [chore] to the title would also do the job |
lmolkova
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Part of #816
Changes
time and duration are close but slightly different ways to instrument times.
There are plenty of examples in this doc with duration yet it wasn't defined in the instrument naming section.
@jack-berg explained in this comment clearly the difference between time and duration.
This attempts to update the documentation to persist this information by documenting duration and explaining when to use it compared to time.
Merge requirement checklist
[chore]