feat(django): add request context to OpenTelemetry spans

[pauldambra]

[Robot] Prepared with PostHog Desktop.

💡 Motivation and Context

Django users need to link backend spans to the browser session that caused a request. Event context and native PostHog spans already use request IDs, but application-owned OpenTelemetry spans do not.

• Add an optional PostHogContextSpanProcessor to the application's existing provider. Child spans keep the request IDs captured when they start.
• Enrich an active Django request span after middleware reads the request context, including spans started before PostHog middleware.
• Preserve explicit span attributes and application identity. Omit missing IDs and keep lookup failures out of request handling.
• Skip enrichment when span capacity is insufficient, so adding IDs does not evict application attributes.
• Stop native and OpenTelemetry spans from using request IDs after their scope ends, including inherited async tasks. Existing event context behavior stays the same.
• Document setup, middleware order, optional dependencies, and async lifetime limits. Keep the AI processor separate.

Public API additions: posthog.integrations.otel.PostHogContextSpanProcessor and enrich_current_span().

Related specification work: SDK span context tracking and the shared span bridge contract. This uses the native trace attribute names sessionId and posthogDistinctId.

💚 How did you test it?

• After rebasing onto SDK 7.71.0, the combined two-layer stack passed 967 integration, tracing, and context tests plus 11 subtests. The public API check and mypy check passed for 308 source files.
• Exported native and OpenTelemetry spans, explicit identity precedence, frozen child context, sync and async Django, failure cleanup, and concurrent async requests, and tasks that outlive the request.
• Ruff format and lint, mypy baseline check, public API snapshot and generator tests, and import with warnings as errors passed.
• Tested with Python 3.14.7, Django 5.2.17, and OpenTelemetry SDK 1.40.0.
• Added focused regressions for full span attributes and explicit new contexts after an inherited request ends.
• The 30 focused span tests also pass with OpenTelemetry SDK 1.20.0.

📝 Checklist

• I reviewed the submitted code.
• I added tests to verify the changes.
• I updated the docs if needed.
• No breaking change or entry added to the changelog.

If releasing new changes

• Ran sampo add to generate a changeset file

Added a changeset in the documented Sampo format.

🤖 Agent context

Autonomy: Human-driven (agent-assisted)

Codex (GPT-6) used shell tools and GitHub CLI. Model gpt-6-astra reviewed the SDK and fixed the attribute-capacity and inherited-context cases. The change uses the application's existing provider and an explicit processor for child spans. Django also updates a request span that is already active. Human review is required.

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Created with PostHog Desktop

[posthog]

PostHog Review · Standard · reviewed 9c4fe74: 1 Should fix.

[github-actions]

posthog-python Compliance Report

Date: 2026-10-17T14:13:50.114285+00:00
Duration: 259198ms

✅ All Tests Passed!

121/121 tests passed

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Capture_V1 Tests

✅ 95/95 tests passed

View Details

Test	Status	Duration
Endpoint And Method.Targets V1 Endpoint	✅	513ms
Endpoint And Method.Does Not Use Legacy Endpoints	✅	509ms
Required Headers.Has Authorization Bearer Header	✅	508ms
Required Headers.Has Content Type Json	✅	509ms
Required Headers.Has Posthog Sdk Info Format	✅	507ms
Required Headers.Has Posthog Attempt Header	✅	508ms
Required Headers.Has Posthog Request Id	✅	508ms
Required Headers.Has Posthog Request Timestamp	✅	508ms
Required Headers.Has User Agent	✅	508ms
Body Format.Body Has Created At And Batch	✅	508ms
Body Format.No Api Key In Body	✅	507ms
Body Format.No Sent At In Body	✅	508ms
Event Format.Event Has Required Root Fields	✅	508ms
Event Format.Event Uuid Is Valid	✅	508ms
Event Format.Event Timestamp Is Rfc3339	✅	508ms
Event Format.Non Utc Event Timestamp Is Converted To Utc	✅	512ms
Event Format.Distinct Id Is String	✅	508ms
Event Format.Distinct Id At Root Not Properties	✅	508ms
Event Format.Custom Properties Preserved	✅	508ms
Event Format.Set Properties Preserved	✅	508ms
Event Format.Set Once Properties Preserved	✅	508ms
Event Format.Groups Properties Preserved	✅	508ms
Event Format.Sdk Generates Uuid If Not Provided	✅	508ms
Event Format.Event Has Required Root Fields Batch	✅	510ms
Event Format.Event Uuid Is Valid Batch	✅	510ms
Event Format.Event Timestamp Is Rfc3339 Batch	✅	511ms
Event Format.Distinct Id Is String Batch	✅	510ms
Event Format.Distinct Id At Root Not Properties Batch	✅	510ms
Event Format.Custom Properties Preserved Batch	✅	510ms
Event Format.Set Properties Preserved Batch	✅	510ms
Event Format.Set Once Properties Preserved Batch	✅	510ms
Event Format.Groups Properties Preserved Batch	✅	511ms
Event Format.Sdk Generates Uuid If Not Provided Batch	✅	510ms
Batch Behavior.Multiple Events In Single Batch	✅	513ms
Batch Behavior.Batch Envelope Smoke	✅	511ms
Batch Behavior.Flush With No Events Sends Nothing	✅	505ms
Batch Behavior.Flush At Triggers Batch	✅	1009ms
Batch Behavior.Created At Reflects Batch Creation Time	✅	508ms
Deduplication.Generates Unique Uuids	✅	513ms
Deduplication.Different Events Same Content Different Uuids	✅	510ms
Deduplication.Preserves Uuid On Retry	✅	6516ms
Deduplication.Preserves Timestamp On Retry	✅	6513ms
Deduplication.Preserves Uuid And Timestamp On Batch Retry	✅	6520ms
Deduplication.No Duplicate Events In Batch	✅	513ms
Header Behavior On Retry.Attempt Header Starts At One	✅	508ms
Header Behavior On Retry.Attempt Header Increments On Retry	✅	13524ms
Header Behavior On Retry.Request Id Preserved On Retry	✅	6517ms
Header Behavior On Retry.Different Requests Have Different Request Ids	✅	3016ms
Header Behavior On Retry.Request Timestamp Changes On Retry	✅	6516ms
Response Format Validation.Success Response Has Uuid Keyed Results	✅	508ms
Response Format Validation.Success Response Has Ok For Each Event	✅	511ms
Response Format Validation.Success No Retry After When All Ok	✅	509ms
Response Format Validation.Success Retry After Present When Retry Events	✅	1512ms
Response Format Validation.Success No Retry After When Drop Only	✅	510ms
Response Format Validation.Response Echoes Request Id	✅	507ms
Retry Behavior.Retries On 408	✅	6514ms
Retry Behavior.Retries On 500	✅	6517ms
Retry Behavior.Retries On 503	✅	8519ms
Retry Behavior.Retries On 504	✅	6514ms
Retry Behavior.Retryable Errors Have Retry After	✅	3514ms
Retry Behavior.Respects Retry After On Retryable Error	✅	11519ms
Retry Behavior.Does Not Retry On 400	✅	2511ms
Retry Behavior.Does Not Retry On 401	✅	2511ms
Retry Behavior.Does Not Retry On 402	✅	2510ms
Retry Behavior.Does Not Retry On 413	✅	2510ms
Retry Behavior.Does Not Retry On 415	✅	2509ms
Retry Behavior.Non Retryable Errors Have No Retry After	✅	2511ms
Retry Behavior.Implements Backoff	✅	22533ms
Retry Behavior.Max Retries Respected	✅	22518ms
Partial Batch Handling.Handles 200 Full Success	✅	2509ms
Partial Batch Handling.Handles 200 With All Ok	✅	3514ms
Partial Batch Handling.Does Not Retry Dropped Events	✅	3513ms
Partial Batch Handling.Does Not Retry Limited Events	✅	3513ms
Partial Batch Handling.Prunes Ok Events On Partial Retry	✅	6517ms
Partial Batch Handling.Prunes Dropped Events On Partial Retry	✅	6518ms
Partial Batch Handling.Retries Only Retry Events From Partial	✅	6516ms
Partial Batch Handling.Partial Retry Preserves Uuids	✅	6513ms
Partial Batch Handling.Partial Retry Attempt Header Increments	✅	6513ms
Partial Batch Handling.Partial Retry Request Id Preserved	✅	6519ms
Partial Batch Handling.Respects Retry After On Partial	✅	8517ms
Partial Batch Handling.Unknown Result Treated As Terminal	✅	3511ms
Partial Batch Handling.Mixed Ok Drop Limited No Retry	✅	3512ms
Compression.Sends Gzip Content Encoding	✅	509ms
Compression.No Content Encoding When Disabled	✅	508ms
Compression.Compressed Body Is Decompressible	✅	508ms
Error Handling.Does Not Retry On Unknown 4Xx	✅	2510ms
Event Options.Cookieless Mode Override	✅	508ms
Event Options.Disable Skew Correction Override	✅	507ms
Event Options.Process Person Profile Override	✅	508ms
Event Options.Product Tour Id Override	✅	507ms
Event Options.Unset Options Omitted	✅	508ms
Event Options.Options Override In Batch	✅	509ms
Geoip And Historical Migration.Geoip Disable Injected Into Properties	✅	508ms
Geoip And Historical Migration.Historical Migration Set In Body	✅	508ms
Geoip And Historical Migration.Historical Migration Absent By Default	✅	508ms

Capture_Ai Tests

✅ 5/5 tests passed

View Details

Test	Status	Duration
Routing.Capture Ai Posts To Ai Endpoint	✅	507ms
Routing.Capture Does Not Reroute Ai Named Events	✅	508ms
Identity.Capture Ai Event Has Uuid	✅	508ms
Identity.Capture Ai Keeps Supplied Uuid	✅	507ms
Timestamp Format.Non Utc Event Timestamp Is Converted To Utc	✅	508ms

Feature_Flags Tests

✅ 17/17 tests passed

View Details

Test	Status	Duration
Request Payload.Request With Person Properties Device Id	✅	8ms
Request Payload.Flags Request Uses V2 Query Param	✅	6ms
Request Payload.Flags Request Hits Flags Path Not Decide	✅	6ms
Request Payload.Flags Request Omits Authorization Header	✅	5ms
Request Payload.Token In Flags Body Matches Init	✅	6ms
Request Payload.Groups Round Trip	✅	6ms
Request Payload.Groups Default To Empty Object	✅	6ms
Request Payload.Disable Geoip False Propagates As Geoip Disable False	✅	6ms
Request Payload.Disable Geoip Omitted Defaults To False	✅	6ms
Request Payload.Flag Keys To Evaluate Contains Only Requested Key	✅	6ms
Request Lifecycle.No Flags Request On Init Alone	✅	2ms
Request Lifecycle.No Flags Request On Normal Capture	✅	506ms
Request Lifecycle.Two Flag Calls Produce Two Remote Requests	✅	10ms
Request Lifecycle.Mock Response Value Is Returned To Caller	✅	6ms
Retry Behavior.Retries Flags On 502	✅	309ms
Retry Behavior.Retries Flags On 504	✅	310ms
Side Effect Events.Get Feature Flag Captures Feature Flag Called Event	✅	508ms

Feature_Flags_Local_Evaluation Tests

✅ 4/4 tests passed

View Details

Test	Status	Duration
Versioned Boolean Matching.Matching Version Missing	✅	46ms
Versioned Boolean Matching.Matching Version 1	✅	43ms
Versioned Boolean Matching.Matching Version 2	✅	43ms
Versioned Boolean Matching.Version Only Reload 1 2 1 2 Missing	✅	22ms

[pauldambra]

Note

🤖 Automated comment by QA Swarm — not written by a human

Verdict: ✅ APPROVE _{(round 1 @ 0cdbf2c)}

No remaining actionable finding in the reviewed change. The rebase retains the reviewed bridge and current header settings. Capacity, identity, and ended-scope checks remain covered.

Key findings

• None remain in this revision. Existing focused tests and completed independent review coverage were reused.
• Human review and the shared specification decision remain required. This comment does not approve a merge or release.

Convergence

No remaining duplicate finding.

Reviewer summaries

Reviewer	Assessment
Router (gpt-6-astra)	Complexity HIGH, confidence HIGH. Completed independent API and concurrency coverage was reused. The cheaper router could not start because the agent thread limit was reached. No further delegation was needed.

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Automated by QA Swarm. Human review is required.