feat(trace): in v3, add cadenceIsCron tag in the start workflow span

[shijiesheng]

What changed?
Same as #1071 but for v3

Why?

How did you test it?

Potential risks

Release notes

Documentation Changes

[gitar-bot]

CI failed: The build failed due to test regressions in the `com.uber.cadence.internal.tracing.StartWorkflowTest` class, where critical tests for the new `cadenceIsCron` span tag are being skipped.

Overview

Testing failed in the workflow module, specifically linked to the new changes. A critical subset of tests intended to validate the cadenceIsCron tag implementation is being skipped, preventing verification of the requested feature.

Failures

Test Suite Regressions in Tracing (confidence: high)

• Type: test
• Affected jobs: Unit Test with Docker Service (Sticky Off)
• Related to change: yes
• Root cause: The tests testCronWorkflowSetsIsCronSpanTagGRPC and testSignalStartWorkflowGRPCNoPropagation in StartWorkflowTest.java are explicitly skipped during execution, likely due to @Ignore annotations, missing environment configuration, or broken test logic.
• Suggested fix: Review src/test/java/com/uber/cadence/internal/tracing/StartWorkflowTest.java to identify why these tests are not running. Remove any premature @Ignore tags or address the environment/dependency requirements that prevent these tests from executing.

Summary

• Change-related failures: 1 (Primary failure in test suite validation for new feature).
• Infrastructure/flaky failures: 0 (Build infrastructure was stable, though deprecation warnings were noted regarding Node.js versioning).
• Recommended action: Enable and fix the skipped tests in StartWorkflowTest.java to ensure the cadenceIsCron tag functionality is correctly implemented and verified.

Code Review ✅ Approved 1 resolved / 1 findings

Adds the cadenceIsCron tag to start workflow spans, resolving the unreliable string reference comparison for cron schedule detection. Integration and unit tests confirm correct span tagging for both cron and standard workflows.

✅ 1 resolved

✅ Bug: String reference comparison (!= "") for cronSchedule is unreliable

📄 src/main/java/com/uber/cadence/internal/tracing/TracingPropagator.java:75
attributes.getCronSchedule() != "" compares String references, not contents. This produces a correct result in the unit test only because the test passes a literal "", which is interned and therefore reference-equal to the "" literal in the comparison. In production, getCronSchedule() returns a String produced by Thrift/gRPC deserialization, which is a distinct heap object. For a non-cron workflow whose server-side value is an empty string, deserializedEmpty != "" evaluates to true, so cadenceIsCron would be incorrectly tagged true. Additionally, if getCronSchedule() returns null for non-cron workflows, null != "" is also true, again mis-tagging non-cron workflows as cron.

Use content comparison with null-safety instead of reference comparison. For example: .withTag(TAG_IS_CRON, attributes.getCronSchedule() != null && !attributes.getCronSchedule().isEmpty()). Note the existing unit tests would not catch this because they rely on interned literals; consider testing with a non-interned string (e.g. new String("")) or a null value.

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