SZL Holdings · Doctrine v6 · DOI 10.5281/zenodo.20434276

OpenTelemetry
for governance-grade
audit fibers

vsp-otel exports Λ-axis spans — each span carries a DSSE receipt, 9 governance-dimension scores, and a martingale-bounded Λ score over OTLP wire format.

vsp-otel brand — OpenTelemetry governance exporter
Nervous system anatomy — governance audit fibers analogy

A pure-Python OTel exporter for governance spans

vsp-otel maps governance events to OpenTelemetry spans using the OTLP wire protocol and W3C trace context propagation. Each span receives a Λ-score and DSSE receipt — no proprietary backends required.

Pure Python · No C extensions

Implements the OTel exporter interface in pure Python. No C extensions, no native dependencies. Portable across CPython 3.11+ and PyPy.

W3C trace-context-compatible

Propagates traceparent and tracestate headers per W3C Trace Context Level 1. Interoperable with Jaeger, Tempo, and Honeycomb.

OTLP wire format

Exports spans via OTLP/HTTP or OTLP/gRPC — the standard OpenTelemetry wire protocol. Drop-in replacement for opentelemetry-exporter-otlp for governance workloads.

DSSE receipt per span

Every span receives a SHA-256 DSSE envelope with receiptHash, doctrine version, and issuedAt timestamp. Receipts are stored in the SCITT Merkle chain via szl.receipt.hash.

Lean-verified invariants

The Lutar Invariant Λ ∈ [0, 1] is machine-checked via 30 GREEN Lean 4 + Mathlib modules in szl-holdings/lutar-lean (DOI 10.5281/zenodo.20434308).

Open source · Apache 2.0

Licensed Apache 2.0. Source at szl-holdings/vsp-otel. DOI-pinned at 10.5281/zenodo.20434276.

9 governance measurement dimensions

Each OTel span carries 9 axis scores in lambda.* attributes. The weighted sum produces the Lutar Invariant Λ ∈ [0, 1]. Spans failing the floor (Λ < 0.90) are flagged and receipt-attested.

Λ-AXIS RADAR Λ moralGrounding · w=0.20 harmAvoidance logicalCoherence citationIntegrity measurability Λ fill (default 0.92) Axis vertex (floor 0.90)

12 UDS fields mapped across telemetry backends

The Sankey diagram below shows how 12 UDS span fields flow to their equivalent attribute names in Jaeger, Grafana Tempo, and Honeycomb backends via OTLP.

Sankey diagram: 12 UDS span fields mapped to Jaeger, Tempo, and Honeycomb backend equivalents via OTLP

Emit Λ-signed spans in real time

The vsp-otel-emitter Space runs the pure-Python port of the exporter. Adjust all 9 axis sliders, set span metadata, and observe the DSSE receipt output. Source: szl-holdings/vsp-otel.

Feature matrix

Comparison of vsp-otel against four OTel-compatible exporters across governance-specific capabilities.

Feature otel-python OTLP otel-collector-contrib Sentry OTel Honeycomb vsp-otel
Governance-axis dimensions (9) ✗ none ✗ none ✗ none ✗ none ✓ 9 axes
DSSE receipt wrapping per span
Lean-verified invariants ✓ 30 GREEN
W3C trace-context
OTLP wire format
Open source ✓ Apache 2.0 ✓ Apache 2.0 ⊘ partial ✗ SaaS ✓ Apache 2.0
Martingale Λ-score ✓ Doob-bounded

Scope boundaries

vsp-otel is a span exporter with governance semantics. These capabilities are explicitly out of scope.

Not a replacement for opentelemetry-collector

vsp-otel is an exporter, not a collector. It sends spans to a collector or backend via OTLP. It does not route, filter, or batch spans at infrastructure level — use otel-collector-contrib for that.

Not a SaaS product

vsp-otel has no hosted endpoint, no subscription, and no managed service. It is a library that your application instantiates. The HuggingFace Space is a demo environment only.

Not a metrics aggregator

vsp-otel operates on traces and spans. It does not aggregate, roll up, or expose Prometheus-style metrics. For metrics pipelines, use the OTel Metrics API with a separate exporter.

Not a general-purpose audit log

Λ-axis spans are governance events, not a generic log sink. Unstructured application logs should use the OTel Logs API, not vsp-otel span attributes.

References & specifications

[1]
OpenTelemetry Authors. Tracing API — OpenTelemetry Specification (Stable).
https://opentelemetry.io/docs/specs/otel/trace/api/
[2]
OpenTelemetry Authors. OTLP Specification 1.10.0.
https://opentelemetry.io/docs/specs/otlp/
[3]
Kanzhelev, S. et al. Trace Context — W3C Recommendation, 2021-11-23.
https://www.w3.org/TR/trace-context/
[4]
Lutar, S. P. SZL Holdings v18.0 Master Thesis — Multi-track Substrate Expansion. SZL Holdings, 2026.
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20434276 · Concept: 10.5281/zenodo.19944926
[5]
Lutar, S. P. lutar-lean — Lean 4 + Mathlib proofs of Λ measurability and bounds. SZL Holdings, 2026.
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20434308 · Repo: github.com/szl-holdings/lutar-lean
[6]
Doob, J. L. Stochastic Processes. Wiley, 1953. (Optional stopping theorem — bounds on expected Λ-gate stopping time.)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1bh4c8h