1min.

1MIN · PRODUCTION ENGINEERING

Cloudflare Traces connects edge decisions to application requests

Cloudflare Traces extends request timelines beyond Workers to supported security rules, URL transformations, caching, routing and origin handling. Teams can see which step blocked a request or consumed its time, then connect those spans to instrumented application services using standard trace headers. Traces can be inspected in the dashboard or exported to an OpenTelemetry-compatible backend.

Cloudflare · Oct 2, 2026

Why it matters

Production investigations can connect edge configuration decisions with application behavior instead of comparing disconnected logs.

More context

Try the open beta on one domain, choose a baseline sampling rate and add a Trace Rule for a specific investigation. Export to your existing OTLP destination if you want Cloudflare and application spans together.

Keep in mind

Coverage is limited to supported operations; broader instrumentation and longer retention are still planned. Application services need their own instrumentation. New ingestion-based pricing starts December 1; 1min has not tested overhead.

Original read

More engineering ideas, one minute at a time.

Explore more stories