Is your feature request related to a problem?

Hi maintainers — I’d like to request a documentation clarification for OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TIMEOUT.

In the current docs, the description says “Default: 10”, but the unit is not explicitly stated (seconds vs milliseconds), which can lead to misconfiguration in real deployments.

• Doc link: https://opentelemetry-python.readthedocs.io/en/latest/sdk/environment_variables.html#envvar-OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TIMEOUT
• Current wording: “The OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TIMEOUT is the maximum time the OTLP exporter will wait for each batch export. Default: 10”
• Problem: the numeric default is given without a unit, and operators may assume different units (e.g., 10ms vs 10s)

Why this matters

We accidentally configured/operated this value with the wrong unit assumption, which caused timeout behavior different from what we intended. An explicit unit in the docs would prevent similar confusion for other users.

Describe the solution you'd like

Request / Proposal

Could the docs explicitly state the unit for OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TIMEOUT (and ideally also for related vars like OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TRACES_TIMEOUT, OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_METRICS_TIMEOUT, OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_LOGS_TIMEOUT if applicable)?

For example:

• “Default: 10 seconds” (or “Default: 10 (seconds)”)
• Optionally add a short example clarifying what OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_TIMEOUT=10 means in practice.

Describe alternatives you've considered

No response

Additional Context

No response

Would you like to implement a fix?

None

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