Trace context, baggage not propagated when use auto instrumentation with Camel 4 (with quarkus)

[vasyly71]

Hi,

I have a quarkus/camel based microservice auto instrumented with opentelemetry java agent 2.17.
Microservices uses following:

• quarkus platform 3.15
• camel 4.8
• JVM OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM - Oracle Corporation - 17.0.0.1+2-3

(list of camel related dependencies can be found in attached file camel related dependencies camel-dependencies.txt)

Environment to setup OTEL agent:

export OTEL_JAVAAGENT_DEBUG="true"
export OTEL_PROPAGATORS="tracecontext,baggage"
export JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS="-javaagent:../opentelemetry-javaagent.jar"
export OTEL_INSTRUMENTATION_COMMON_DEFAULT_ENABLED=true
export OTEL_INSTRUMENTATION_CAMEL_ENABLED=true
export OTEL_TRACES_EXPORTER=none
export OTEL_LOGS_EXPORTER=none
export OTEL_METRICS_EXPORTER=none

What i see in the logs:

[otel.javaagent 2025-07-22 09:59:30:591 -0400] [main] WARN io.opentelemetry.javaagent.tooling.instrumentation.MuzzleMatcher - Instrumentation skipped, mismatched references were found: camel [class io.opentelemetry.javaagent.instrumentation.apachecamel.ApacheCamelInstrumentationModule] on QuarkusClassLoader:Augmentation Class Loader: DEV for my-app@370ef50b
[otel.javaagent 2025-07-22 09:59:30:597 -0400] [main] WARN io.opentelemetry.javaagent.tooling.instrumentation.MuzzleMatcher - -- io.opentelemetry.javaagent.instrumentation.apachecamel.CamelTracingService:54 Missing class org.apache.camel.util.ServiceHelper
[otel.javaagent 2025-07-22 09:59:30:597 -0400] [main] WARN io.opentelemetry.javaagent.tooling.instrumentation.MuzzleMatcher - -- io.opentelemetry.javaagent.instrumentation.apachecamel.CamelEventNotifier:45 Missing class org.apache.camel.management.event.ExchangeSentEvent
[otel.javaagent 2025-07-22 09:59:30:597 -0400] [main] WARN io.opentelemetry.javaagent.tooling.instrumentation.MuzzleMatcher - -- io.opentelemetry.javaagent.instrumentation.apachecamel.CamelContextInstrumentation$StartAdvice:45 Missing method org.apache.camel.spi.RoutePolicyFactory#createRoutePolicy(Lorg/apache/camel/CamelContext;Ljava/lang/String;Lorg/apache/camel/NamedNode;)Lorg/apache/camel/spi/RoutePolicy;
[otel.javaagent 2025-07-22 09:59:30:597 -0400] [main] WARN io.opentelemetry.javaagent.tooling.instrumentation.MuzzleMatcher - -- io.opentelemetry.javaagent.instrumentation.apachecamel.CamelContextInstrumentation$StartAdvice:45 Missing method org.apache.camel.Service#start()V
[otel.javaagent 2025-07-22 09:59:30:597 -0400] [main] WARN io.opentelemetry.javaagent.tooling.instrumentation.MuzzleMatcher - -- io.opentelemetry.javaagent.instrumentation.apachecamel.CamelContextInstrumentation$StartAdvice:45 Missing method org.apache.camel.Service#stop()V
[otel.javaagent 2025-07-22 09:59:30:597 -0400] [main] WARN io.opentelemetry.javaagent.tooling.instrumentation.MuzzleMatcher - -- io.opentelemetry.javaagent.instrumentation.apachecamel.CamelTracingService:0 Missing class org.apache.camel.support.ServiceSupport
[otel.javaagent 2025-07-22 09:59:30:597 -0400] [main] WARN io.opentelemetry.javaagent.tooling.instrumentation.MuzzleMatcher - -- io.opentelemetry.javaagent.instrumentation.apachecamel.CamelEventNotifier:43 Missing class org.apache.camel.management.event.ExchangeSendingEvent
[otel.javaagent 2025-07-22 09:59:30:597 -0400] [main] WARN io.opentelemetry.javaagent.tooling.instrumentation.MuzzleMatcher - -- io.opentelemetry.javaagent.instrumentation.apachecamel.CamelTracingService:39 Missing method org.apache.camel.spi.EventNotifier#notify(Lorg/apache/camel/spi/CamelEvent;)V

Classes either direct or in method signatures seems were moved around in camel 3 and 4.

Does it mean that java auto instrumentation agent does not support camel 3 and 4 at the moment?
Are there plans to support it? If yes when community plans to support, otherwise what would be the alternative?
Or maybe i'm doing something wrong and community can help me debugging it?

Also Camel community still suggests auto instrumentation agent: https://camel.apache.org/components/4.10.x/others/opentelemetry.html#OpenTelemetry-JavaAgent

Thank You
Vasyl

camel related dependencies camel-dependencies.txt

[laurit]

Camel instrumentation in the agent is only for camel 2. Later versions of camel have built-in support for OpenTelemetry. As far as I know instrumentation in the agent is based on code from camel 3.

[vasyly71]

I doubt it supports camel 3.
Instrumentation code refers to org.apache.camel.util.ServiceHelper but according to camel migration guide 2 to 3 it was moved in camel 3 (https://camel.apache.org/manual/camel-3-migration-guide.html):

The class ServiceHelper has been moved from org.apache.camel.util.ServiceHelper in the camel-core JAR to org.apache.camel.support.service.ServiceHelper and moved to the camel-api JAR.

Also does mean that camel support in OTEL abandoned and i need to rel on camel support for OTEL and update dependencies in my camel microservices, rebuild etc?

[jaydeluca]

Also does mean that camel support in OTEL abandoned and i need to rel on camel support for OTEL and update dependencies in my camel microservices, rebuild etc?

I don't think "abandoned" is the right way to think about this. The philosophy of the java agent is to provide auto-instrumentation for libraries that do not provide a "native" integration. Camel is a library that provides native support within the library itself, which is the goal for libraries to eventually do, as it is more scalable in the long run.

[vasyly71]

Hi,

Just to confirm—there are no plans to support Camel 3 or 4 in future versions of the Java agent, right?

@jaydeluca If Camel is considered to have native support, should the OpenTelemetry community update the documentation accordingly
https://opentelemetry.io/docs/languages/java/instrumentation/#native-instrumentation ?
Should camel instrumentation be marked as deprecated?

Thanks

[jaydeluca]

should the OpenTelemetry community update the documentation accordingly

maybe, it's complicated because versions 2 - 3.5 are not native, so it could be misleading to list it. You are welcome to open a PR to update this page and make a case for it though.

Should camel instrumentation be marked as deprecated?

It's not deprecated, it just only targets specific versions. We are working on improving our documentation, the first step of which is to write descriptions for each module. The description for camel in this new system is much more explicit about the distinction between version support. Soon we'll be working on publishing this information more generally.

Here are the camel specific docs in case you hadn't come across them: https://camel.apache.org/components/4.10.x/others/opentelemetry.html

[vasyly71]

I think we can consider this discussion resolved, as all of my concerns have been addressed.

I'm aware of the Camel-specific documentation you shared:
https://camel.apache.org/components/4.10.x/others/opentelemetry.html — thank you for highlighting it.

That said, I was hoping to rely solely on the OpenTelemetry Java agent, as I need to ensure that trace context and baggage propagate correctly from non-Camel components into Camel routes. I also want to ensure that baggage attributes can be logged via MDC.
I’ve already implemented an instrumentation extension to support this when the agent is used, and now need to solve for similar behavior with Camel’s native OpenTelemetry instrumentation.

In any case, this thread can be closed.

Thanks again for the prompt and helpful responses!