How do I inspect an OpenTelemetry trace?

Short answer: Find the root span, then inspect slow spans and spans with error status. The first upstream error span often explains the rest of the trace.

Steps

1. Paste OTLP JSON, exported spans, or a trace summary.
2. Find the root span, service path, total duration, and error spans.
3. Sort child spans by duration and look for retries, database calls, and network waits.
4. Compare span attributes with logs or API responses from the same request ID.

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