Kernels

Each Span has a Kernel, which is a back-end-specific hunk of data that can be passed to another computer, allowing that computer to continue the current span. This is how tracing becomes distributed.

Kernel Data

Kernel wraps a single value toHeaders: Map[String, String], allowing for straightforward serialization. These values are typically turned into HTTP headers (and parsed from headers on the other end). See the EntryPoint reference for an example.

Http4s Client Example

The examples in this section use the following imports:

import cats.effect.IO
import natchez.{ Span }
import org.http4s.{ EntityDecoder, Uri, Header }
import org.http4s.Method.GET
import org.http4s.client.Client
import org.http4s.client.dsl.io._
import org.typelevel.ci.CIString

We can add a Span’s kernel to an outgoing Client request. If the remote server supports tracing via the same back end, it can extend the trace with child spans.

def makeRequest[A](span: Span[IO], client: Client[IO], uri: Uri)(
  implicit ev: EntityDecoder[IO, A]
): IO[A] =
  span.kernel.flatMap { k =>
    // turn a Map[String, String] into List[Header]
    val http4sHeaders = k.toHeaders.map { case (k, v) => Header.Raw(CIString(k), v) } .toSeq
    client.expect[A](GET(uri).withHeaders(http4sHeaders))
  }