ASK: Enable Distributed Tracing from VS Code Extension
From: CosmosDB vnext Team
To: vscode-documentdb Extension Team
Date: 2026-02-23
Background
We are instrumenting CosmosDB vNext Emulator with OpenTelemetry for end-to-end distributed tracing: client → database. The emulator side is done. We need the VS Code extension to participate as the client.
The goal: when a user gets an error in VS Code, they can click a link that opens the trace in a browser inside VSCode, showing exactly what happened across the full stack.
What We Need From the Extension
1. Surface trace links in the VS Code UI
When an operation fails (or on demand), give the user a clickable link that opens the trace in the backend visualization UI (e.g., Grafana/Tempo, Jaeger). This could be in error notifications, the output channel, the Problems panel — wherever makes sense for the extension's UX.
The trace viewer URL format should be configurable (different deployments use different backends).
2. Make it opt-in
Tracing should be off by default and enabled via extension settings, since not all users will have a trace backend deployed.
Notes:
Ideally we would make this easily discoverable and the links int he logs/error prominent
ASK: Enable Distributed Tracing from VS Code Extension
From: CosmosDB vnext Team
To: vscode-documentdb Extension Team
Date: 2026-02-23
Background
We are instrumenting CosmosDB vNext Emulator with OpenTelemetry for end-to-end distributed tracing: client → database. The emulator side is done. We need the VS Code extension to participate as the client.
The goal: when a user gets an error in VS Code, they can click a link that opens the trace in a browser inside VSCode, showing exactly what happened across the full stack.
What We Need From the Extension
1. Surface trace links in the VS Code UI
When an operation fails (or on demand), give the user a clickable link that opens the trace in the backend visualization UI (e.g., Grafana/Tempo, Jaeger). This could be in error notifications, the output channel, the Problems panel — wherever makes sense for the extension's UX.
The trace viewer URL format should be configurable (different deployments use different backends).
2. Make it opt-in
Tracing should be off by default and enabled via extension settings, since not all users will have a trace backend deployed.
Notes:
Ideally we would make this easily discoverable and the links int he logs/error prominent