Tracetest Monthly Newsletter - July 2023

*[Join the Community Slack here](https://dub.sh/tracetest-community) to talk all things Tracetest, get instant support from our team, or simply say hi! If you like what we're doing, and haven't already, [leave us a ⭐ on GitHub](https://github.com/kubeshop/tracetest).*

## Welcome to the first edition of the Tracetest Monthly Newsletter!

Thank you for being part of the community. Your support and feedback are invaluable! ❤️

Ready for some major Tracetest news?

In the last month, we **released v0.13.0** with a new **Signoz integration** and a brand **new resource called Test Runner** that enables using **Required Gates** for tests and transactions.

But, the main bombshell of the month if that **Tracetest is now the official trace-based testing tool for the OpenTelemetry Demo**!

Read on to see what we were up to in July!

## Hot tip of the day!

### Using Duration in Assertions

Here is an example how to select all database spans with a wildcard selector. And, use the duration attribute to validate all database spans are processing in less than `100ms`.

```yaml
specs:
 - name: 'All Database Spans: Less than 100ms'
   selector: span[tracetest.span.type="database"]
   assertions:
   - attr:tracetest.span.duration < 100ms
```

## What’s new with Tracetest? 🎉

**We released the [Analyzer](https://docs.tracetest.io/configuration/tracetest-analyzer/) in beta last month. Since then the list of improvements has grown to include:**

- Disabling and enabling plugins
- Setting error levels for rules
- Configuring the weight of each rule

**A major update added in the last month is the brand new [Test Runner](https://docs.tracetest.io/configuration/test-runner/) resource (testrunner). It enables you to use:**

- **Required Gates (required-gates) for tests and transactions**

**User Experience improvements:**

- Automate page for Transactions
- URL warning when using localhost on Docker

**Check out Jorge's demo below to see the new Analyzer and Test Runner features hands-on!**

## Integrations 🛠️

We had three awesome partnerships to showcase last month!

- Azure App Insights [announcement blog post](https://tracetest.io/blog/announcing-the-tracetest-integration-with-azure-app-insights) 👩‍💻
- [Signoz](https://github.com/SigNoz/signoz) integration added!
- Grafana: [Tutorial](https://tracetest.io/blog/monitoring-and-testing-cloud-native-apis-with-grafana) and [Office Hours](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ0wdneD8Po&t=1690s) 🎙️

## Community 📣

### Community Contributions on GitHub

We’re working hard on recognizing and celebrating the contributions of community members to help foster a healthy community and encourage contributions. This last month we had two major contributions:

[**Asaduzzaman Pavel**](https://github.com/k1ng440)

- [GraphQL Support issue](https://github.com/kubeshop/tracetest/issues/2904)

**[Adam Gardner](https://github.com/agardnerIT)**

- [Dynatrace Data Source](https://github.com/kubeshop/tracetest/pull/2989)
- [Dynatrace recipe](https://docs.tracetest.io/examples-tutorials/recipes/running-tracetest-with-dynatrace)
- [Dynatrace example app](https://github.com/kubeshop/tracetest/tree/main/examples/tracetest-dynatrace)

### Onboarding and Docs

The documentation received a huge update to the onboarding sections.

- New **[Welcome](https://docs.tracetest.io/)** 👋 page
- New **[Getting](https://docs.tracetest.io/getting-started/overview)** section

### OpenTelemetry Community Contributions

The biggest news of the month if that Tracetest is now the official trace-based testing tool for the OpenTelemetry Demo! Read more below.

- [Trace-based testing added to OpenTelemetry Demo](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-demo/pull/877)
- [Testing the OpenTelemetry Demo Blog post](https://opentelemetry.io/blog/2023/testing-otel-demo/)

### Check out Daniel's demo of trace-based testing the OpenTelemetry demo below!

### Join us at upcoming events!

[DeveloperWeek CloudX](https://www.developerweek.com/cloudx/) is a hybrid conference in San Mateo California. It’ll host 3,500 Cloud developers, architects, IT & infrastructure professionals and executives building the cloud ecosystem. Our team will be presenting two talks. Join us!

- [Adnan’s](https://www.linkedin.com/in/adnanrahic/) virtual talk on “**[Observability-Driven Development with OpenTelemetry](https://developerweekcloudx2023.sched.com/event/1PF8V/virtual-exclusive-pro-talk-observability-driven-development-with-opentelemetry?iframe=no&w=100%&sidebar=yes&bg=no)**”
- [Ken’s](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ken-hamric-016b1420/) talk on “**Leveraging Observability in Testing: Trace-based Testing**” are both [in-person](https://developerweekcloudx2023.sched.com/event/1Pqxd/open-talk-leveraging-observability-in-testing-trace-based-testing?iframe=no&w=&sidebar=yes&bg=no) and [virtual](https://developerweekcloudx2023.sched.com/event/1Pqxh/virtual-open-talk-leveraging-observability-in-testing-trace-based-testing?iframe=no&w=&sidebar=yes&bg=no)

## Like what we do?

**Do you have a specific use case you'd like us to cover? Want to contribute to Tracetest?**

Whether it's big or small, we love contributions.

Not sure where to get started? You can:

- Visit our [Community Page](https://tracetest.io/community).
- See our contributing guidelines [here](https://github.com/kubeshop/tracetest/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md).
- [Book a meeting](https://calendly.com/ken-kubeshop/45min?month=2023-08) with us or chat with our team via [Slack](https://dub.sh/tracetest-community).

See you next month...