The o11y radar, October 2026
OTTL reaches v1, a security exception to OTel's stability rules, the Kubernetes attributes processor goes stable, and Grafana's ObservabilityCON.
opentelemetryvendors
Once a month: what changed in OpenTelemetry and across observability vendors, and why it matters to you. Every item links to its source.
OpenTelemetry
OTTL is v1. The OpenTelemetry Transformation Language is stable for traces, metrics and logs from opentelemetry-collector-contrib v0.164.0. The 1.x promise covers the syntax, the standard functions and the Go API. Lambda-style functions and profiles support stay experimental, and the transform processor is next in line for stable. Why it matters: redaction, enrichment and routing rules in your collector now sit on a stable language. Our tip on redacting at the edge uses it. Source
Security fixes may now change behavior in minor releases. Stable SDKs and contrib components may ship narrowly scoped security changes in minor or patch releases even when they affect existing users, for example rejecting input that used to be accepted, or truncating telemetry. Public APIs and semantic conventions are still protected, and release notes must say what to do. Why it matters: read the release notes of minor OTel upgrades, not only majors. Source
The Kubernetes attributes processor is v1.0.0. It is stable for logs, metrics and traces and adopts the Kubernetes semantic conventions that went stable in June. Some names change (container.image.tag becomes container.image.tags), with feature gates to emit both during migration. Why it matters: check dashboards and alerts that filter on Kubernetes attributes before you upgrade. Source
Vendors
Grafana Labs at ObservabilityCON 2026 (20 October). Generally available: Agent Observability with OpenTelemetry support, and Assistant Watchers, always-on agents that flag changes alert rules miss. In public preview: Grafana Pages (visualizations without fixed dashboard layouts) and Managed Sandboxes. Why it matters: agent telemetry is arriving as OpenTelemetry, not as one more proprietary format. Source
From us
@ouo11y/browserand@ouo11y/react-nativeare on npm.- RUM without our SDK: what ouo11y actually needs from a browser.
Seen something we should cover next month? news@ouo11y.com.