How to extend Xray Apache HTTP ClientBuilder?

[kjhok1811]

I want to customize Metadata properties when instrumenting with Xray Apache HTTP ClientBuilder. What should I do?

[srprash]

Hi @kjhok1811
From my understanding, currently it is not possible to get access to the subsegment created by the X-Ray SDK for instrumented HTTP client. @willarmiros Can you confirm this?

For your instrumented HTTP client, are you looking to modifying existing metadata or add new ones? If you want to add new metedata, one workaround could be to create custom subsegment around the http client call and add metadata to this subsegment.

[kjhok1811]

um...
Is there a way to customize the Xray Apache HTTP ClientBuilder?
@srprash

[srprash]

Is there a way to customize the Xray Apache HTTP ClientBuilder?

Unfortunately, the provided HttpClientBuilder cannot be customized.

However, I was wrong in saying

From my understanding, currently it is not possible to get access to the subsegment created by the X-Ray SDK for instrumented HTTP client.

There's a way (a bit convoluted though) you can modify the subsegments for HTTP calls using the SegmentListener interface.
You can implement this interface (let's call it MySegmentListener for example) and override it's beforeEndSubsegment method. Here you can check if this is the subsegment you want to modify and then customize its properties. You will need to add the MySegmentListener to your AWSXRayRecorder by doing something like this:

AWSXRayRecorderBuilder builder = AWSXRayRecorderBuilder.standard().withSegmentListener(mySegmentListener);
AWSXRay.setGlobalRecorder(builder.build());

Be advised that this may degrade some performance as the SegmentListener will be invoked for every Segment/Subsegment created in your application.