Agreed with Dmitri.
X-Request-Id (or Request-Id) is not a standard HTTP header but is widely
used across systems, including Polaris, for logging, events, and metrics.
Its primary purpose is debuggability. For example, it lets us correlate
logs and events for the same HTTP call.
Example:
Log: {timestamp: ..., request-id: 123, message: "Update table
successfully!"}
Event: {type: BeforeUpdateTable, request-id: 123}, {type: AfterUpdateTable,
request-id: 123}
*Request ID* should remain the canonical identifier for every request
handled by Polaris.
- If missing, Polaris generates one (e.g., UUIDv7 or brings back the one
Adnan built).
- All logs, events, and metrics include it for consistent internal and
downstream correlation. No need to invent another concept like
"correlated ID" for event only, which introduce inconsistency and make
correlation harder.
*OTel context* is OPTIONAL.
- If present, persist it alongside for tracing. Put it in
`additionalProperties` for events if people need it.
- If absent, users decide to start a new trace (nice to have) or not.
Yufei
On Fri, Oct 31, 2025 at 10:37 AM Dmitri Bourlatchkov <[email protected]>
wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I'd like to broaden the events / OTel discussion [1][2] a bit. Apologies
> for forking the email threads even more, but I think this aspect deserves a
> focused discussion.
>
> From previous messages my impression is that there are use cases for
> strongly correlating "before" and "after" events. In that situation the
> full OTel context may be too volatile. For example, nothing guarantees that
> the "before" and "after" events are produced under the same OTel span in
> Polaris.
>
> Another aspect of this is multiple before/after event pairs may be produced
> under the same API request. Assuming event consumers do want to
> re-establish correct event pairs, I believe using only the request ID is
> not sufficient for that purpose.
>
> We probably need to restore the Polaris request ID generator but use it to
> produce an ID per group of events (before/after) and publish / persist that
> ID with the event data.
>
> WDYT?
>
> [1] https://lists.apache.org/thread/bb1qyxjt827t3tomv2xp0s1kovxjsp94
> [2] https://lists.apache.org/thread/5dpyo0nn2jbnjtkgv0rm1dz8mpt132j9
>
> Thanks,
> Dmitri.
>
