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Tracing allows you to follow a request or operation through your entire application, creating a hierarchical view of nested operations and their timing.

​
Understanding Traces

A trace represents a single request or operation flow through your application. It consists of:
  • Trace ID: Unique identifier for the entire trace
  • Root Span: The top-level operation (transaction)
  • Child Spans: Nested operations within the trace
import * as Sentry from '@sentry/browser';

// Start a new trace
Sentry.startSpan({ name: 'process_order', op: 'function' }, (span) => {
  // This is the root span of a new trace
  console.log('Trace ID:', span.spanContext().traceId);
  
  // Child spans inherit the trace ID
  Sentry.startSpan({ name: 'validate_order', op: 'function' }, () => {
    validateOrder();
  });
  
  Sentry.startSpan({ name: 'save_order', op: 'db.query' }, () => {
    saveOrder();
  });
});

​
Starting Spans

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Automatic Span Finishing

The recommended way to create spans - they finish automatically: 
Sentry.startSpan({ name: 'my_operation', op: 'function' }, (span) => {
  // Your code here
  doWork();
  
  // Span automatically finishes when callback completes
  return result;
});

​
Manual Span Control

For cases where you need explicit control: 
Sentry.startSpanManual({ name: 'long_operation', op: 'task' }, (span, finish) => {
  // Start async work
  startAsyncWork();
  
  // Finish the span manually later
  setTimeout(() => {
    finish(); // or span.end()
  }, 5000);
});

​
Inactive Spans

Create spans that don’t automatically become the active span: 
import { startInactiveSpan } from '@sentry/browser';

const span = startInactiveSpan({ name: 'background_task', op: 'task' });

// Do work
processBackground();

// Manually finish
span.end();
Inactive spans don’t become parent spans for automatic instrumentation. Use them for background tasks or parallel operations.

​
Working with Active Spans

​
Setting Active Spans

Control which span is active in a given scope: 
import { withActiveSpan, startInactiveSpan } from '@sentry/browser';

const span = startInactiveSpan({ name: 'custom_operation' });

withActiveSpan(span, () => {
  // Inside here, `span` is the active span
  // Child spans will be children of `span`
  Sentry.startSpan({ name: 'child_operation' }, () => {
    // This is a child of `span`
  });
});

span.end();

​
No Parent Span

Start a span tree without a parent: 
import { withActiveSpan } from '@sentry/browser';

withActiveSpan(null, () => {
  // Spans started here won't have a parent
  Sentry.startSpan({ name: 'independent_operation' }, () => {
    // This is a root span
  });
});

​
Trace Context

Access trace information from scopes: 
import { getCurrentScope, getTraceContextFromScope } from '@sentry/browser';

const scope = getCurrentScope();
const traceContext = getTraceContextFromScope(scope);

console.log('Trace ID:', traceContext.trace_id);
console.log('Span ID:', traceContext.span_id);
console.log('Parent Span ID:', traceContext.parent_span_id);

​
Continuing Traces

Continue a trace from incoming headers (useful for distributed tracing): 
import { continueTrace } from '@sentry/browser';

// Extract trace headers from incoming request
const sentryTrace = request.headers.get('sentry-trace');
const baggage = request.headers.get('baggage');

continueTrace(
  {
    sentryTrace,
    baggage
  },
  () => {
    // Operations here are part of the incoming trace
    Sentry.startSpan({ name: 'handle_request', op: 'http.server' }, () => {
      handleRequest();
    });
  }
);
Use continueTrace to maintain trace context across service boundaries and create a complete distributed trace.

​
Starting New Traces

Explicitly start a new trace, disconnecting from any parent trace: 
import { startNewTrace } from '@sentry/browser';

startNewTrace(() => {
  // This starts a completely new trace
  // Useful for background jobs or independent operations
  Sentry.startSpan({ name: 'background_job', op: 'task' }, () => {
    processBackgroundJob();
  });
});
Only use startNewTrace when you explicitly want to break the trace chain. In most cases, operations should be part of the ongoing trace.

​
Span Options

​
Basic Options

Sentry.startSpan(
  {
    name: 'my_operation',
    op: 'function',
    attributes: {
      'custom.field': 'value',
      'user.type': 'premium'
    }
  },
  (span) => {
    // Your code
  }
);

​
Parent Span Control

Explicitly set the parent span: 
import { startInactiveSpan } from '@sentry/browser';

const parentSpan = startInactiveSpan({ name: 'parent' });

Sentry.startSpan(
  {
    name: 'child',
    parentSpan: parentSpan
  },
  () => {
    // This span is a child of parentSpan
  }
);

parentSpan.end();

​
Conditional Spans

Only create spans if a parent exists: 
Sentry.startSpan(
  {
    name: 'optional_child',
    onlyIfParent: true
  },
  (span) => {
    // This span is only created if there's an active parent span
    // Otherwise, it's a non-recording span
  }
);

​
Force Transaction

Force a span to be a transaction (root span): 
Sentry.startSpan(
  {
    name: 'forced_transaction',
    forceTransaction: true
  },
  (span) => {
    // This creates a new transaction even if there's an active parent
  }
);

​
Custom Scope

Provide a specific scope for the span: 
import { Scope } from '@sentry/browser';

const customScope = new Scope();
customScope.setTag('custom', 'scope');

Sentry.startSpan(
  {
    name: 'scoped_operation',
    scope: customScope
  },
  () => {
    // This span uses customScope
  }
);

​
Span Attributes

Add structured data to spans: 
Sentry.startSpan({ name: 'process_payment' }, (span) => {
  span.setAttribute('payment.method', 'credit_card');
  span.setAttribute('payment.amount', 99.99);
  span.setAttribute('payment.currency', 'USD');
  span.setAttribute('user.premium', true);
  
  processPayment();
});

​
Semantic Attributes

Use semantic attributes for standard data: 
Sentry.startSpan(
  {
    name: 'GET /api/users',
    op: 'http.client',
    attributes: {
      'http.method': 'GET',
      'http.url': 'https://api.example.com/users',
      'http.status_code': 200,
      'http.request.body.size': 0,
      'http.response.body.size': 1024
    }
  },
  () => {
    // ...
  }
);

​
Updating Span Names

Change a span’s name dynamically: 
Sentry.startSpan({ name: 'dynamic_operation' }, (span) => {
  const result = performOperation();
  
  // Update the span name based on the result
  span.updateName(`operation_${result.type}`);
  
  return result;
});

​
Span Status

Set the status to indicate success or failure: 
import { SPAN_STATUS_ERROR, SPAN_STATUS_OK } from '@sentry/browser';

Sentry.startSpan({ name: 'risky_operation' }, (span) => {
  try {
    performRiskyOperation();
    span.setStatus({ code: SPAN_STATUS_OK, message: 'ok' });
  } catch (error) {
    span.setStatus({ code: SPAN_STATUS_ERROR, message: 'internal_error' });
    throw error;
  }
});
Span status is automatically set to error if an exception occurs within the span callback.

​
Span Events

Add timestamped events to spans: 
Sentry.startSpan({ name: 'multi_step_process' }, (span) => {
  span.addEvent('validation_started');
  validateInput();
  
  span.addEvent('processing_started', {
    'items.count': 10
  });
  processItems();
  
  span.addEvent('processing_complete', {
    'items.processed': 10,
    'items.failed': 0
  });
});

​
Practical Examples

​
API Request Handler

async function handleApiRequest(req, res) {
  await Sentry.startSpan(
    {
      name: `${req.method} ${req.path}`,
      op: 'http.server',
      attributes: {
        'http.method': req.method,
        'http.route': req.path,
        'http.query': req.query
      }
    },
    async (span) => {
      // Authenticate
      const user = await Sentry.startSpan(
        { name: 'authenticate', op: 'auth' },
        () => authenticateUser(req)
      );
      
      span.setAttribute('user.id', user.id);
      
      // Query database
      const data = await Sentry.startSpan(
        { name: 'query_database', op: 'db.query' },
        () => fetchData(user.id)
      );
      
      span.setAttribute('result.count', data.length);
      
      // Serialize response
      const response = await Sentry.startSpan(
        { name: 'serialize_response', op: 'serialize' },
        () => JSON.stringify(data)
      );
      
      res.json(response);
    }
  );
}

​
Background Job Processing

import { startNewTrace } from '@sentry/browser';

async function processBackgroundJob(job) {
  // Start a new trace for this independent job
  await startNewTrace(async () => {
    await Sentry.startSpan(
      {
        name: `job.${job.type}`,
        op: 'queue.task',
        attributes: {
          'job.id': job.id,
          'job.type': job.type,
          'job.priority': job.priority
        }
      },
      async (span) => {
        // Fetch job data
        const data = await Sentry.startSpan(
          { name: 'fetch_job_data', op: 'db.query' },
          () => fetchJobData(job.id)
        );
        
        // Process
        const result = await Sentry.startSpan(
          { name: 'process_job', op: 'function' },
          () => processJob(data)
        );
        
        span.setAttribute('result.status', result.status);
        
        // Save result
        await Sentry.startSpan(
          { name: 'save_result', op: 'db.query' },
          () => saveResult(job.id, result)
        );
      }
    );
  });
}

​
Best Practices

  1. Use descriptive names: Span names should clearly indicate what operation they represent
  2. Set appropriate operations: Use standard operation types for consistency
  3. Add relevant attributes: Include data that helps identify and debug slow operations
  4. Keep span hierarchies shallow: Deeply nested spans can be hard to analyze
  5. Use semantic attributes: Follow OpenTelemetry conventions for standard data
  6. Finish spans promptly: Don’t leave spans open longer than necessary

​
Next Steps

Spans

Learn more about individual spans

Distributed Tracing

Track requests across services

Performance

Overview of performance monitoring

Profiling

CPU profiling for performance bottlenecks

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