getsentry / getsentry/sentry

Allow viewing a single span without loading the full parent trace

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#117,184 4 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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Feature Product Area: Explore
Dominant language
Python
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Avg merge
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Merged PRs (30d)
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Description

Problem Statement

When working with large frontend traces (thousands of spans), the customer wants to open and view a single span on its own, without loading and rendering the entire parent trace. Currently, clicking a span in Explore → Traces always opens the full parent trace; for these large traces that is overwhelming and makes it hard to focus on the specific span they need. In their words: "I want this trace, I don't care about parent traces."

Solution Brainstorm

A way to open and inspect a single span (and optionally its immediate children) directly, without rendering the full parent trace.

Product Area

Explore

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start in Explore → Traces, where clicking a span currently opens its full parent trace. Define how a single span, optionally with immediate children, should open and render without loading the parent trace; done means the focused span can be inspected independently on large traces.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Domain
frontend, observability
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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