Difference between extensions and distro packaging

[alvinhom]

I am writing a custom instrumentation plugin for our company. I want to put it into a separate jar so I can get the latest opentelemetry jar and just build my custom plugin code.

I am reading the documentation in the examples directory and it looks like I should package it in extensions. However, the distro package looks similar. I am not quite clear on the differences. Can someone explain the difference between them?

[trask]

hi @alvinhom! this is a good question. I have started an issue to document the differences: #6047.

In a nutshell, we recommend using the extension mechanism if that works for you as it is generally much simpler.