review: switch to towncrier fragment + tighten docstring (open-telemetry#5183)

Signed-off-by: WatchTree-19 <119982314+WatchTree-19@users.noreply.github.com>

Author: WatchTree-19

.changelog/5183.changed

@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+`opentelemetry-sdk`: tighten `ReadableSpan.attributes` return type to non-Optional `Mapping`

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -2,6 +2,14 @@
 
 All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.
 
+<!--
+Do *NOT* add changelog entries here!
+
+This changelog is managed by towncrier and is compiled at release time.
+
+See https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-python/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md#changelog for details.
+-->
+
 The format is based on [Keep a Changelog](https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.0.0/),
 and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0.html).
 
@@ -10,10 +18,12 @@ and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0
 > [!IMPORTANT]
 > We are working on stabilizing the Log signal that would require making deprecations and breaking changes. We will try to reduce the releases that may require an update to your code, especially for instrumentations or for sdk developers.
 
+<!-- changelog start -->
+
 ## Unreleased
 
-- `opentelemetry-sdk`: tighten `ReadableSpan.attributes` annotation to non-Optional `Mapping` so callers don't need `assert ... is not None` boilerplate; runtime guarantee was already in place via `MappingProxyType(self._attributes or {})`
-  ([#5183](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-python/pull/5183))
+- `opentelemetry-sdk`: fix multi-processor `force_flush` skipping remaining processors when one returns `None`
+  ([#5179](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-python/pull/5179))
 - Apply fixes for `UP` ruff rule
   ([#5133](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-python/pull/5133))
 - Switch to SPDX license headers and add CI enforcement
@@ -56,6 +66,14 @@ and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0
   ([#4996](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-python/pull/4996))
 - `opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-proto-grpc`: make retryable gRPC error codes configurable for gRPC exporters
   ([#4917](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-python/pull/4917))
+- `opentelemetry-sdk`: add sampler plugin loading to declarative file configuration via the `opentelemetry_sampler` entry point group, matching the spec's PluginComponentProvider mechanism
+  ([#5095](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-python/pull/5095))
+- Add `registry` keyword argument to `PrometheusMetricReader` to allow passing a custom Prometheus registry
+  ([#5055](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-python/pull/5055))
+- Add ability to selectively enable exporting of SDK internal metrics with the `OTEL_PYTHON_SDK_INTERNAL_METRICS_ENABLED` environment variable.
+  ([#5151](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-python/pull/5151))
+- `opentelemetry-api`, `opentelemetry-sdk`: add support for 'random-trace-id' flags in W3C traceparent header trace flags. Implementations of `IdGenerator` that do randomly generate the 56 least significant bits, should also implement a `is_trace_id_random` methods that returns `True`.
+  ([#4854](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-python/pull/4854))
 
 ## Version 1.41.0/0.62b0 (2026-04-09)
 

opentelemetry-sdk/src/opentelemetry/sdk/trace/__init__.py

@@ -498,11 +498,7 @@ def status(self) -> trace_api.Status:
 
     @property
     def attributes(self) -> Mapping[str, types.AttributeValue]:
-        # The implementation always returns a MappingProxyType, never None,
-        # because `self._attributes or {}` falls back to an empty dict.
-        # Tightening the return annotation fixes type-checker complaints
-        # like `Object of type "None" is not subscriptable` when callers
-        # do `span.attributes["key"]`. See issue #4569.
+        # `or {}` keeps the return non-None; see #4569.
         return MappingProxyType(self._attributes or {})
 
     @property