Glossary term
What is span (Trace and span)?
span stands for Trace and span.
In AI Engineering
A trace is the record of one request. A span is one timed, labelled step inside it.
Learn it properly · AI EngineeringLesson 4: Observability and Guardrails for LLM Features in ProductionWhat to log and what never to log, spans, redaction, schema validation, a circuit breaker, a kill switch, prompt versions and an incident playbook.In Observability & SRE
One timed step inside a trace, such as a database query or an outgoing HTTP call.
Learn it properly · Observability & SRELesson 3: Distributed Tracing With OpenTelemetrySpans and traces, context propagation, instrumenting a Node service, and reading a trace to find a slow call.