I have an up_down_counter, why is the absolute value stored in the gauge? This pretty clearly conflicts with the "expected" behavior, i.e. how prometheus represents gauges

If the aggregation temporality is cumulative and the sum is non-monotonic, it MUST be converted to a Prometheus Gauge.

https://opentelemetry.io/docs/specs/otel/compatibility/prometheus_and_openmetrics/#sums the up-down counter is cumulative and non-monotonic. hence they are stored in the gauge. I am not following your point. What is specifically conflicting here?