# Traces Explorer

> Use Last9's native UI for tarces with first-class search and filters — quickly view dependencies with a waterfall timeline, span attributes and events, and related logs by clicking on any trace span.

Source: https://last9.io/docs/traces-explorer/

## Using Traces Explorer

You can start exploring traces by visiting [Traces Explorer](https://app.last9.io/traces) in Last9. The Traces Explorer allows to filter traces by specific traces attributes and resource info to slice and dice by various trace dimensions, and view correlated telemetry.

:::tip
Use [Remapping](/docs/control-plane-remapping/) in the Control Plane to standardize service names, environments, and other attributes across your traces for consistent filtering and analysis.
:::

![Traces Explorer with a distrubution heatmap of latency durations](../../../../assets/content/docs/traces/traces-explorer/last9-traces-explorer.png)

<figure>
  <figcaption>Traces Explorer with a distrubution heatmap of latency durations</figcaption>
</figure>

Last9 provides a native experience to explore your traces without using any query language.

- **Search:**
  - With auto-complete support, `service` and `span` are first-class attributes
  - Supported operators are `equal`, `not equal`, `exists`, and `does not exist`
- **Time Picker:** Select an absolute or relative time range. You can also type shorthands like `1h` or `30m` directly, or switch between timezones. See [Time Range Picker](/docs/time-range-picker/) for details.
- **Duration Heatmap:** A heatmap of latency distribution. Click and drag to zoom into and filter out specific outliers.
- **Share:** The Share option copies a link to the current view, the query as JSON, or an equivalent `cURL` command for the [traces query API](/docs/traces-query-api/).

## Trace Details

![Trace Details with dependencies and waterfall timeline, and span attributes and events](../../../../assets/content/docs/traces/traces-explorer/last9-trace-details.png)

<figure>
  <figcaption>Trace Details with dependencies and waterfall timeline, and span attributes and events</figcaption>
</figure>

Clicking on a trace in Traces Explorer opens a side panel with additional context and information about the selected trace ID.

- **Duration** and **no. of spans**
- **Waterfall timeline** with dependencies
  - Click on the count pill to view any child spans
  - Click on a span to view span details
- **Span Details** with:
  - Span Name
  - Span ID
  - Service Name
  - Attributes
  - Span Events
  - Links
- **Span Context** with attributes, resource info, and related logs
- **Request & Response** in the Summary tab — when spans record the `http.request.body` and `http.response.body` attributes, both bodies render with JSON syntax highlighting and a copy button

:::note
Request and response bodies appear only if your instrumentation captures the `http.request.body` and `http.response.body` span attributes — most auto-instrumentations do not record them by default. If you enable body capture, make sure sensitive fields are masked before export.
:::

## Creating Metrics from Queries

Turn a trace query into a continuous metric with [Last9 TraceMetrics](/docs/streaming-aggregations/#transforming-traces-to-metrics-last9-tracemetrics). Build a query with FILTER and AGGREGATE stages in the [Query Builder](/docs/traces-query-builder/#using-query-builder-with-streaming-aggregation), then click **Create Metric** to open a pre-filled [Streaming Aggregation](/docs/streaming-aggregations/) rule. The metric is computed continuously, so you can query or alert on it without reprocessing raw spans.

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## Troubleshooting

Please get in touch with us on [Discord](https://discord.com/invite/Q3p2EEucx9) or [Email](mailto:support@last9.io) if you have any questions.