## The problem
Issue honeycombio/refinery#555 (closed, 8 comments): with AddSpanCountToRoot enabled, meta.span_count included span annotations and links, so sampling rules keyed on trace size misfired. Maintainers explained the value deliberately counted every child of the root span, but agreed the naming was misleading. They added a new AddCountsToRoot config that replaces AddSpanCountToRoot and records separate counts for spans, span events, span links, and the total.
## What to do
If you use Refinery's AddSpanCountToRoot and meta.span_count looks too high, that is by design: it counts every child of the root span, including span events and span links, not just spans. For separate numbers, set AddCountsToRoot to true instead. That config overrides AddSpanCountToRoot and records meta.span_count (spans only), meta.spanevent_count, meta.spanlink_count, and meta.event_count (the sum). Dont set both and expect validation to complain; when both are present, AddCountsToRoot simply wins.