Infer instrumentation helper classes at build time by sarahchen6 · Pull Request #12059 · DataDog/dd-trace-java

sarahchen6 · 2026-07-23T16:53:26Z

What Does This Do

This PR adds logic to generate each InstrumenterModule's helperClassNames() at build-time instead of the existing logic that requires each module's helper classes to be manually listed. The MuzzleGenerator already crawls through each module's advice in order to gather its references and emit these in a $Muzzle side-class. We simultaneously use this crawl to infer the helperClasses each module needs to load, order them dependency-first, drop build-time-only classes, and write these helperClasses directly into the module's helperClassNames() bytecode.

If a module manually declares its helperClassNames(), we use that list instead of inferring.

Also, this PR migrates a few instrumentations from manual declarations of required helper classes to auto-detecting these classes in order to test the new methodology.

Motivation

Currently, instrumentation helper classes are manually listed for each InstrumenterModule. However, we can instead use Muzzle, which already finds class references for each instrumentation, to automatically discover which helper classes need to be loaded per instrumentation. This is inspired by OTel's muzzle, which generates getMuzzleHelperClassNames() from their single build-time advice crawl.

Additional Notes

The intention is for all instrumentations to discover required helper classes at build time; however, I wanted to keep the scope of this PR low so that it's easier to review. The rest of the instrumentations will be migrated in follow-up PRs.

A follow-up PR #12191 also extracts the helper resolver logic to its own class so that the logic is separate from muzzle reference generation and more easily testable and legible.

Contributor Checklist

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Once approved, use merge queue to merge the PR

Jira ticket: [PROJ-IDENT]

dd-octo-sts · 2026-07-30T12:51:16Z

🟢 Java Benchmark SLOs — All performance SLOs passed

Suite	Status
Startup	🟢 pass

SLO thresholds are defined here based on automatically generated metrics. A warning is raised when results are within 5% of the threshold.

PR vs. master results

Scenario	Candidate	master	Δ (95% CI of mean)
startup:insecure-bank:iast:Agent	14.01 s	14.01 s	[-1.0%; +1.1%] (no difference)
startup:insecure-bank:tracing:Agent	12.92 s	12.99 s	[-1.4%; +0.5%] (no difference)
startup:petclinic:appsec:Agent	16.92 s	16.63 s	[+0.8%; +2.6%] (maybe worse)
startup:petclinic:iast:Agent	16.93 s	16.97 s	[-0.8%; +0.4%] (no difference)
startup:petclinic:profiling:Agent	16.80 s	16.72 s	[-0.6%; +1.7%] (no difference)
startup:petclinic:sca:Agent	16.81 s	16.50 s	[+0.9%; +2.8%] (maybe worse)
startup:petclinic:tracing:Agent	16.03 s	16.06 s	[-1.2%; +0.8%] (no difference)

Commit: 6892d247 · CI Pipeline · Benchmarking Platform UI

Load and DaCapo benchmarks can be triggered manually in the GitLab pipeline. Results will appear in the Benchmarking Platform UI after completion.

sarahchen6 · 2026-08-11T21:07:44Z

 * 1. Must implement [net.bytebuddy.build.Plugin]
- * 2. Must have a constructor accepting a [java.io.File] parameter (target directory)
+ * 2. Must have a constructor accepting a [java.io.File] (target directory), or a two-`File`
+ *    `(sourceDirectory, targetDirectory)` constructor when the plugin also needs the source folder


sourceDirectory is needed to determine whether it was the particular submodule that compiled the className (done in isOwnOutput(className) - if yes then inject).

💭 thought: The fact that target moved from the 1st position to the 2nd position make the implementation weird. Can’t we infer isOwnOutput() some otherway?‏

You should be able to compute the source directory using the TypeDefinition and the ClassLoader.
You can load the module as URL and infer its source folder for example.

Good point!! Addressed this in 9139e4e by getting the module's codeSource location.

sarahchen6 · 2026-08-11T21:18:49Z

  }

+  /**
+   * Same as above, but reads bytecode via the passed locator (e.g. during build time when the agent


MuzzleGenerator needs to call HelperScanner.withClassDependencies at build-time to expand and order the helpers found, but there's no AgentClassLoader during the build (there is during runtime which is previously the only place we called HelperScanner.withClassDependencies) - so we need to pass in the build classpath's locator to use.

dd-octo-sts · 2026-08-12T15:10:00Z

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More details

Generated methods preserved all four migrated instrumentations’ former helper sets and correctly handled dependency ordering, nested helpers, and unresolved-class fallback. Runtime instrumentation also loaded the generated helpers successfully for locally executable requests.

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PerfectSlayer

I start reviewing and will drop few inline comments for now.

📝 notes: The plugin is enabled for all instrumentations so it will apply to all instrumentations that do not explicitly override the helper declaration method, not only the few that are migrated as demo.

amarziali · 2026-08-17T10:03:20Z

+    }
+
+    String[] orderedHelpers =
+        computeInjectedHelpers(module, allReferences, adviceClasses, sourceRoot);


I would try to separate the helper computation from the muzzle generator since the two have different roles. The common logic to discover references in muzzle can still be used but the helper computation can go in a different gradle plugin

I experimented with a separate gradle plugin, but found that I'd need to either call ReferenceCreator again and crawl through the advice classes a second time or create some sort of per-module shared cache where the plugin could store/access results... WDYT about this follow-up PR instead that separates out the logic but keeps one pass? #12191

I had the same feelings... Mixing both concerns does not feel right.
So it could be two different plugin, or a common umbrella (no longer the Muzzle plugin) that would do the parsing with two outcomes (Muzzle and Helper).
I could be nice to ask to @mcculls about design expectations now he’s back.

If you want to avoid multiple passes then I would go with a generic plugin that records references (reachability, ordering, etc.) and then have the muzzle and helper plugins use that recorded data.

Or have the muzzle and helper logic as components that plug into this generic plugin. Avoid mixing muzzle and helper code in the same class though, as a fix/change to one could easily break the other.

BTW, worth taking a look at HelperScanner - we use this to expand the list of helpers to pull in all referenced classes for GraalVM (rather than just the listed helpers) and it has logic to help order the loading of classes by how they reference each other which you might find useful when doing similar ordering at build time.

mcculls · 2026-08-26T08:46:00Z

+ */
+public final class HelperClassPredicate {
+
+  static final String[] HELPER_PREFIXES = {


SHARED_HELPER_PREFIXES?

mcculls · 2026-08-26T09:31:22Z

+   * @param ownOutput tests whether a class name was compiled by the instrumentation subproject
+   *     itself; injected so this classifier stays independent of the build directory layout.
+   */
+  public HelperClassPredicate(final Predicate<String> ownOutput) {


FWIW I found ownOutput a bit confusing - it feels like this could be a separate pruning step (if we go with having a generic advice scanner + different processors)

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DataDog deleted a comment from dd-octo-sts Bot Jul 23, 2026

sarahchen6 force-pushed the sarahchen6/infer-helper-classes-pt-1 branch from 98edf9d to a09ff60 Compare July 28, 2026 18:24

DataDog deleted a comment from dd-octo-sts Bot Jul 29, 2026

This was referenced Aug 3, 2026

Write helpers into module bytecode directly #12134

Closed

Add index for instrumentation helper classes #12116

Closed

sarahchen6 added 12 commits August 11, 2026 12:51

Implement auto-inferring helper methods

d38bdd4

Migrate some instrumentations

dd6a4ac

Fix class crawl logic

8666030

Clean comments

af1a4cb

Make helper-name resolution lazy

dfa4605

Do not capture entire module instanc at prepareInstrumentation

b2e3704

Undo lazy loading

2a0c4b3

Use source file to determine helpers

5704828

Avoid injecting build-time-only muzzle classes

7d9966d

Add tests for full helper inference for manual specification

b90f639

Clean up

6d82a50

Clean comments

a8cdba9

sarahchen6 force-pushed the sarahchen6/infer-helper-classes-pt-1 branch from 29b0bff to a8cdba9 Compare August 11, 2026 16:52

sarahchen6 added 3 commits August 11, 2026 15:29

Write helpers into module bytecode directly

d569e4e

Only auto-generate if not manually listed

04b01e4

Use either manual list or auto-generation

eb22da6

sarahchen6 changed the title ~~Auto-infer instrumentation required helper classes at build time~~ Infer instrumentation helper classes at build time Aug 11, 2026

sarahchen6 commented Aug 11, 2026

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Clean up

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sarahchen6 marked this pull request as ready for review August 12, 2026 15:09

sarahchen6 requested review from a team as code owners August 12, 2026 15:09

sarahchen6 requested review from ValentinZakharov and amarziali and removed request for a team August 12, 2026 15:09

sarahchen6 added type: feature Enhancements and improvements comp: tooling Build & Tooling labels Aug 12, 2026

chatgpt-codex-connector Bot reviewed Aug 12, 2026

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Comment thread ...va-agent/agent-tooling/src/main/java/datadog/trace/agent/tooling/muzzle/MuzzleGenerator.java Outdated

datadog-official Bot reviewed Aug 12, 2026

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PerfectSlayer self-requested a review August 13, 2026 12:36

PerfectSlayer reviewed Aug 13, 2026

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Comment thread ...va-agent/agent-tooling/src/main/java/datadog/trace/agent/tooling/muzzle/MuzzleGenerator.java

Comment thread ...va-agent/agent-tooling/src/main/java/datadog/trace/agent/tooling/muzzle/MuzzleGenerator.java Outdated

PerfectSlayer reviewed Aug 13, 2026

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Comment thread ...va-agent/agent-tooling/src/main/java/datadog/trace/agent/tooling/muzzle/MuzzleGenerator.java

sarahchen6 added 3 commits August 13, 2026 14:00

Infer source folder instead of passing in as param

5241bcf

Address review comments

e1a67f9

Address ForbiddenAPI

9139e4e

amarziali reviewed Aug 17, 2026

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Merge branch 'master' into sarahchen6/infer-helper-classes-pt-1

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mcculls reviewed Aug 26, 2026

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What Does This Do

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