[Bug]: OTEL exporter dependency conflict

[jer96]

What happened?

We are encountering the same dependency conflict as #187.

Multiple customers of https://github.com/strands-agents/sdk-python have been trying to integrate with A2A and have experienced the same dependency conflict.

We've observed that opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-proto-http depends on protobuf<6.0 but a2a-python requires protobuf==6.31. In turn, pinning the version of protobuf will not mitigate these dependency conflicts.

NOTE: this impacts any a2a-python consumer who uses OTEL http exporters, this is not specific to the Strands agents SDK. This PR seeks to temporarily mitigate the dependency conflict. However, the side effect of this change is that OTEL http exporting will not work if a consumer uses Strands with the A2A python dependency.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Clone from fork: https://github.com/jer96/sdk-python/tree/otel-issue
2. hatch shell dev
3. pip install -e ".[dev]"
4. enter python 3.12 repl python
5. enter the following snippet in the python repl

from strands import Agent
from a2a.server.apps import A2AFastAPIApplication # this can be any import from a2a

6. observe log output below

Relevant log output

(dev) 󰫷󰫲󰫿 ~/github/sdk-python  otel-issue  python
Python 3.12.7 (main, Oct 16 2024, 04:37:19) [Clang 18.1.8 ] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> from strands import Agent
>>> from a2a.server.apps import A2AFastAPIApplication, A2AStarletteApplication
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/local/home/jerebill/.local/share/hatch/env/virtual/strands-agents/_dXqv6H0/dev/lib/python3.12/site-packages/a2a/server/apps/__init__.py", line 3, in <module>
    from a2a.server.apps.jsonrpc import (
  File "/local/home/jerebill/.local/share/hatch/env/virtual/strands-agents/_dXqv6H0/dev/lib/python3.12/site-packages/a2a/server/apps/jsonrpc/__init__.py", line 3, in <module>
    from a2a.server.apps.jsonrpc.fastapi_app import A2AFastAPIApplication
  File "/local/home/jerebill/.local/share/hatch/env/virtual/strands-agents/_dXqv6H0/dev/lib/python3.12/site-packages/a2a/server/apps/jsonrpc/fastapi_app.py", line 7, in <module>
    from a2a.server.apps.jsonrpc.jsonrpc_app import (
  File "/local/home/jerebill/.local/share/hatch/env/virtual/strands-agents/_dXqv6H0/dev/lib/python3.12/site-packages/a2a/server/apps/jsonrpc/jsonrpc_app.py", line 21, in <module>
    from a2a.server.request_handlers.jsonrpc_handler import JSONRPCHandler
  File "/local/home/jerebill/.local/share/hatch/env/virtual/strands-agents/_dXqv6H0/dev/lib/python3.12/site-packages/a2a/server/request_handlers/__init__.py", line 6, in <module>
    from a2a.server.request_handlers.grpc_handler import GrpcHandler
  File "/local/home/jerebill/.local/share/hatch/env/virtual/strands-agents/_dXqv6H0/dev/lib/python3.12/site-packages/a2a/server/request_handlers/grpc_handler.py", line 10, in <module>
    import a2a.grpc.a2a_pb2_grpc as a2a_grpc
  File "/local/home/jerebill/.local/share/hatch/env/virtual/strands-agents/_dXqv6H0/dev/lib/python3.12/site-packages/a2a/grpc/a2a_pb2_grpc.py", line 5, in <module>
    from . import a2a_pb2 as a2a__pb2
  File "/local/home/jerebill/.local/share/hatch/env/virtual/strands-agents/_dXqv6H0/dev/lib/python3.12/site-packages/a2a/grpc/a2a_pb2.py", line 12, in <module>
    _runtime_version.ValidateProtobufRuntimeVersion(
  File "/local/home/jerebill/.local/share/hatch/env/virtual/strands-agents/_dXqv6H0/dev/lib/python3.12/site-packages/google/protobuf/runtime_version.py", line 106, in ValidateProtobufRuntimeVersion
    _ReportVersionError(
  File "/local/home/jerebill/.local/share/hatch/env/virtual/strands-agents/_dXqv6H0/dev/lib/python3.12/site-packages/google/protobuf/runtime_version.py", line 50, in _ReportVersionError
    raise VersionError(msg)
google.protobuf.runtime_version.VersionError: Detected mismatched Protobuf Gencode/Runtime major versions when loading a2a.proto: gencode 6.31.1 runtime 5.29.5. Same major version is required. See Protobuf version guarantees at https://protobuf.dev/support/cross-version-runtime-guarantee.

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow this project's Code of Conduct

[rajeshvelicheti]

opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-proto-http>=1.30.0,<2.0.0
protobuf>=5.29.5, <6.31.1

pip-compile requirements.txt

certifi==2025.6.15
# via requests
charset-normalizer==3.4.2
# via requests
googleapis-common-protos==1.70.0
# via opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-proto-http
idna==3.10
# via requests
importlib-metadata==8.7.0
# via opentelemetry-api
opentelemetry-api==1.34.1
# via
# opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-proto-http
# opentelemetry-sdk
# opentelemetry-semantic-conventions
opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-proto-common==1.34.1
# via opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-proto-http
opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-proto-http==1.34.1
# via -r requirements.in
opentelemetry-proto==1.34.1
# via
# opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-proto-common
# opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-proto-http
opentelemetry-sdk==1.34.1
# via opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-proto-http
opentelemetry-semantic-conventions==0.55b1
# via opentelemetry-sdk
protobuf==5.29.5
# via
# -r requirements.in
# googleapis-common-protos
# opentelemetry-proto
requests==2.32.4
# via opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-proto-http
typing-extensions==4.14.0
# via
# opentelemetry-api
# opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-proto-http
# opentelemetry-sdk
# opentelemetry-semantic-conventions
urllib3==2.4.0
# via requests
zipp==3.23.0
# via importlib-metadata

[rajeshvelicheti]

I see the issue here, opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-proto-http is not a part of a2a-sdk dependency and so the generation tests did not reveal this error.

The issue below requests latest protobuf support in open telemetry.
open-telemetry/opentelemetry-python#3958

Does grpc exporter help in your case?

[rajeshvelicheti]

Also, would you be able to look at isolating the dependencies to two different virtual environments?

[jer96]

hi @rajeshvelicheti thank you for the prompt response. i agree with your findings.

Also, would you be able to look at isolating the dependencies to two different virtual environments?

yes, i've separate the exporter dependency into a separate target in this PR. moreover, we will refactor the exporter out of the Strands SDK and provide guidance via our documentation on how to setup alternative exporters.

Does grpc exporter help in your case?

i think this depends on the user of either A2A or Strands + A2A. the grpc exporter should be a viable alternative for many, but it really depends on the monitoring backend or collector infrastructure a user has. if their collector infrastructure only handles OTEL via http, then they'd be blocked. hopefully, open-telemetry/opentelemetry-python#3958 can be addressed soon.

i'll close out this issue - thanks again!