Automatic HTTP Client Instrumentation using sentry-opentelemetry-agentless-spring to track outbound HTTP calls

[NINNiT]

Hey,

I have a few questions, hope this is the right place to ask them.

We're using spring-boot, sentry, as well as the agentless opentelemetry approach.
Reading through the docs (sentry and otel) it seems that HTTP Instrumentation should basically just work automatically out-of-the-box.
For example, JDBC auto-instrumentation or Spring MVC server traces work without problems.

However this is not the case for HTTP client calls - we have to manually load in the opentelemetry modules...

    <dependency>
     <groupId>io.opentelemetry.instrumentation</groupId>
     <artifactId>opentelemetry-java-http-client</artifactId>
     <version>2.18.0-alpha</version>
   </dependency>

... and then wrap the HttpClient with the Telemetry:

    @Bean
    public HttpClient httpClient() {
        return JavaHttpClientTelemetry.builder(openTelemetry).build().newHttpClient(httpClientBuilder().build());
    }

HTTP Client Traces are then being send to Sentry - however the "Outbound API Requests" view in the Sentry Backend Dashboard still doesn't show any Requests.

• Is automatic HTTP client instrumentation even possible - or is it always manual?
• Does the "real" agent support more features / auto-instrumentation than agentless?

Thanks <3

---

Versions
Spring-Boot: 3.5.7
JDK/JRE: 21 Temurin
Sentry: 8.26.0
Sentry Maven Plugin: 0.9.0

---

Code Snippets

pom.xml:

  <parent>
   <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
   <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
   <version>3.5.7</version>
 </parent>

  <dependencyManagement>
   <dependencies>
     <dependency>
       <groupId>io.sentry</groupId>
       <artifactId>sentry-bom</artifactId>
       <version>8.26.0</version>
       <type>pom</type>
       <scope>import</scope>
     </dependency>
   </dependencies>
 </dependencyManagement>
 
 <dependecies>
   <dependency>
     <groupId>io.sentry</groupId>
     <artifactId>sentry-opentelemetry-agentless-spring</artifactId>
   </dependency>
  </dependencies>
  
   <plugin>
       <groupId>io.sentry</groupId>
       <artifactId>sentry-maven-plugin</artifactId>
       <version>0.9.0</version>
       <extensions>true</extensions>
       <configuration>
         <org>asdf</org>
         <project>myappr</project>
         <url>https://sentry.asdf.eu/</url>
         <!--suppress UnresolvedMavenProperty -->
         <authToken>${env.SENTRY_AUTH_TOKEN}</authToken>
         <debugSentryCli>true</debugSentryCli>
         <skip>false</skip>
         <skipSourceBundle>false</skipSourceBundle>
         <skipAutoInstall>false</skipAutoInstall>
       </configuration>
       <executions>
         <execution>
           <goals>
             <goal>uploadSourceBundle</goal>
             <goal>validateSdkDependencyVersions</goal>
           </goals>
         </execution>
       </executions>
     </plugin>

properties:

sentry.enabled=true
sentry.release[email protected]@
sentry.dsn=https://[email protected]/37
sentry.send-default-pii=true
sentry.environment=staging
sentry.traces-sample-rate=1.0
sentry.ignored-transactions=.*actuator\/health.*
sentry.debug=false
sentry.logs.enabled=true
sentry.exception-resolver-order=-2147483647
otel.propagators=sentry
otel.traces.exporter=none
otel.metrics.exporter=none