Session Proposal: Enabling observability in ESM

[bengl]

Proposal

Topic of the session

• import-in-the-middle's shortcomings in instrumenting ESM
• New approaches (i.e. code rewriting instead of just monkey-patching)
• What can Node.js core provide that might be helpful?
• What tooling can we build today?

Type of the session

• Collaborate
• Workshop
• Talk

Estimated duration of the session

1 hour

Date and Time of the session

Scheduled on April 2, check https://nodejs.org/calendar for exact times

Level

• Beginner
• Intermediate
• Advanced

Pre-requisite knowledge

It's worth knowing a bit about customization hooks.

Describe the session

Observability vendors rely on Node.js core functionality and core tools built on top of it in order to provide tracing data, metrics, etc., to their users. ESM creates a unique set of challenges that must be overcome in order for ESM to be viable in places where observability is critical.

While we have import-in-the-middle as a solution today, it's broken in ways that can't be fixed in its current state. In this session we'll discuss the main problems, the solution space, and discuss how we'll move forward.

Session facilitator(s), Github handle(s) and timezone(s)

Bryan English (@bengl) - CEST on site.

Meeting notes and Virtual Meeting Link

Follow-up / Set-up sessions (if any)

Additional context (optional)

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[joyeecheung]

I was thinking about covering this in #442 (in the last bit) but it may not be enough time. Should I just remove that last bit and leave it to an entire session here? We can schedule them so they are together as well.

[mhdawson]

I'm interested in attending remotely, I'm in EDT (GMT -04:00)

[bjohansebas]

I would like to attend the session remotely, I am available from 1pm to 5pm GMT -5 (Bogota).

[AbhiPrasad]

We at Sentry wrote up a short guide about this https://github.com/getsentry/esm-observability-guide that's more focused on how Node.js library authors and Node.js deployment platforms can more easily support ESM observability.

If everyone is open, we can take some time to present this as well, in the perspective of how we can better do community work about observability concerns.

[s1gr1d]

I'm interested in attending remotely, I'm in GMT+1

[joyeecheung]

The draft agenda is in https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_FNNbKYcc032NIUqeJ3SZP3PM71aYMuv9D5JbwaS9Iw/edit?usp=sharing (it's not final, this session is currently planned to be 16:10 on day 2, directly following the module customization hooks session - it might start earlier if we move the 10min break to an earlier slot). If you have any comments, it would be easier to coordinate in the #collab-summit-paris-2025 slack channel

[bizob2828]

I'm also interested in attending remotely. I'm in GMT-4:00