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+# General
+
+The conventions described in this section are generic; they are not specific to a
+particular operation.
+
+## Summarizing timed operations
+
+### Justification
+
+Timed operations are generally fully described by Spans. Because these Spans may be
+sampled, aggregating information about them downstream is subject to inaccuracies.
+Computing count, duration, and error rate from _all_ Spans (including `sampled=true` and
+`sampled=false`) results in more accurate aggregates.
+
+### Convention
+
+When creating duration metrics from Spans, the duration **in seconds** of all
+_recorded_ Spans of a given category and kind should be aggregated together in a single
+[`ValueRecorder`](../api.md#valuerecorder).
+
+The instrument's name should be prefixed with a category and the Span's kind,
+using the pattern `{category}.{span.kind}.duration`.
+
+If the duration is derived from Spans that follow one of the common semantic-conventional
+_areas_, the category should be the label prefix used in that semantic convention.
+
+For example:
+
+* `http.server.duration`
+* `http.client.duration`
+* `db.client.duration`
+
+#### Labels
+
+Labels applied to these metric recordings should follow the attribute semantic conventions
+of the corresponding Span for the operation.
+
+Care should be taken when adding labels to the duration instruments in order to avoid
+excessive cardinality.
+
+For example, adding `http.status_code` as a label to the instrument whose duration
+represents HTTP client latency would be reasonable, but `http.response_content_length`
+would not.