Distributed traces provide a way to monitor applications by tracking requests across services. Traces record the details of a request to help understand why an issue is or was happening.
Tracing is best used for analyzing the performance of your system, identifying bottlenecks, monitoring latency, and providing a complete picture of how requests are processed.
Grafana Traces Drilldown helps you make sense of your tracing data so you can automatically visualize insights from your Tempo traces data. Before this app, you would use TraceQL, the query language for tracing, to construct a query in Grafana.
Note: The Explore Traces app is now called Traces Drilldown. To learn more, read Grafana Drilldown apps: the improved queryless experience known as the Explore apps.
Important
Traces Drilldown is presently undergoing active development and is offered in a preview state. Subsequent updates are likely to incorporate significant changes that may impact existing functionality.
You can access Traces Drilldown using Grafana Cloud or a self-managed OSS Grafana or Grafana Enterprise.
The easiest way to access Traces Drilldown is in Grafana Cloud. No setup or installation is required.
To use Traces Drilldown with self-managed Grafana, you need to install the Traces Drilldown plugin.
To use Traces Drilldown, you need:
- A Grafana Cloud account
- A Grafana stack in Grafana Cloud with a configured Tempo data source receiving tracing data
To access Traces Drilldown:
- Open your Grafana stack in a web browser.
- In the main menu, select Drilldown > Traces.
To use Traces Drilldown with Grafana open source or Grafana Enterprise, you need:
- Your own Grafana instance
- A configured Tempo data source
- The Traces Drilldown plugin
Traces Drilldown is distributed as a Grafana Plugin. You can find it in the official Grafana Plugin Directory.
NOTE: All Grafana Cloud instances come with the Traces Drilldown plugin preinstalled.
You can install Traces Drilldown in your own Grafana instance using grafana cli:
grafana cli --pluginUrl=https://storage.googleapis.com/integration-artifacts/grafana-exploretraces-app/grafana-exploretraces-app-latest.zip plugins install grafana-traces-appAlternatively, follow these steps to install Traces Drilldown in Grafana:
- In Grafana, go to Administration > Plugins and data > Plugins.
- Search for "Traces Drilldown".
- Select Traces Drilldown.
- Click Install.
The plugin is automatically activated after installation.
If you want to install the app in a Docker container, you need to configure the following environment variable:
GF_INSTALL_PLUGINS=https://storage.googleapis.com/integration-artifacts/grafana-exploretraces-app/grafana-exploretraces-app-latest.zip;grafana-traces-appTo learn more about Traces Drilldown, refer to our documentation in the repository or published in the Grafana open source documentation.
Want to help with the project? Read the Contributor's guidelines to learn more.
