Operations → Observability
Tracing
Tracking a request or workflow as it moves through multiple services or components.
Motivation
Tracing follows a request across system boundaries. It solves the problem of understanding where time was spent and where failures happened in distributed systems.
Mental model
A trace is a connected story of one operation through many components.
Where it fits
Tracing belongs to the Operations track, inside Observability. It connects to nearby concepts through the graph relationships on this page and in the graph explorer.
Common mistakes
- Adding tracing without consistent IDs.
- Sampling away the requests you need during incidents.
- Confusing traces with logs or metrics.
Related concepts
Use the metadata panel or return to the graph to explore concepts that this one requires or relates to.