[demo] Update docs for Collector exporter renames (otlp_grpc/otlp_http/span_metrics)

[mwimpelberg28]

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Addresses section 4 of #10962.

Collector v0.145.0 renamed the OTLP exporters (otlp → otlp_grpc, otlphttp → otlp_http) and the span metrics connector (spanmetrics → span_metrics) to follow snake_case naming. The old names still work as deprecated aliases but will be removed, and the demo adopted the new names in open-telemetry/opentelemetry-demo#2942 (shipped in demo 3.0.0).

docker-deployment.md

• Bring-your-own-backend snippet: otlphttp/example → otlp_http/example, and the traces pipeline becomes [otlp_grpc/jaeger, debug, span_metrics, otlp_http/example].

  The old snippet listed only [spanmetrics, otlphttp/example], which — given the note's own point that arrays are replaced, not merged — silently dropped the Jaeger and debug exporters. The demo's otelcol-config-extras.yml now explicitly tells forks to repeat the upstream exporter names, so the docs now match that guidance.

• Replaced the "collector will merge the configuration from two files" description with the current four-file layering: otelcol-config.yml + otelcol-config-full.yml + otelcol-config-observability.yml + otelcol-config-extras.yml, noting which compose file loads each.

  Note: the issue text said otelcol-config-full.yml adds "Kafka and PostgreSQL metric receivers", but the postgresql receiver is already in the base otelcol-config.yml — -full only adds kafkametrics. (The upstream file's own header comment is stale on this point.) The docs describe the actual behavior.

• Dropped otlphttp and spanmetrics from cSpell:ignore, since neither spelling appears in the file anymore.

sample-configurations/tail-sampling-service-criticality.md

• Same exporter renames: [otlp, debug, spanmetrics] → [otlp_grpc/jaeger, debug, span_metrics].
• Also fixed processors: [..., transform, ...] → transform/sanitize_spans. There is no bare transform processor in the demo's collector config (only transform/sanitize_spans and transform/sanitize_logs), so that snippet would fail to start for the same class of reason as the exporter names. Prettier reflowed the list to multi-line.

kubernetes-deployment.md

Same renames in the Helm values snippet and the accompanying note.

Important

This part is ahead of the published Helm chart — please hold merge, or ask me to split it out.

The current opentelemetry-demo chart 0.40.10 (appVersion 2.2.0) still defines connectors: spanmetrics: {} and the otlp/jaeger / otlphttp/prometheus exporters. The renames land in open-telemetry/opentelemetry-helm-charts#2326 (chart 0.41.0, appVersion 3.0.0), which is still open.

Until that chart is released, a reader following these values with helm install my-otel-demo open-telemetry/opentelemetry-demo would reference component names the chart doesn't define, and the collector would error. I verified that PR #2326's values.yaml uses otlp_grpc/jaeger, otlp_http/prometheus, and span_metrics, and keeps the opentelemetry-collector: values key, so this snippet is correct the moment 0.41.0 publishes.

Happy to drop the kubernetes-deployment.md change into a follow-up PR if maintainers would rather merge the Docker side now.

Not included here: the rest of docker-deployment.md's drift (section 5 of #10962 — docker-compose.minimal.yml → layered compose.*.yaml, make run-tracetesting, the minimal-mode exclusion list, the load-generator UI link). That will be a separate PR to keep review focused.

npm run check:format, check:spelling, and check:markdown all pass locally.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

Footnotes

1. Yes, I can answer maintainer questions about the content of this PR, without using AI. ↩

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