Send a request to the server you just started with elide serve and its trace appears in the Traces tab: the
request’s spans as a waterfall, each span’s attributes, and the logs written under it. The Server page runs a local
OTLP receiver beside the server for this; your configured exporters keep sending to their own destinations.
Traces tab
The tab appears once a trace is captured. The capture line reads Live capture or Capture paused, followed by the
trace, span and log counts.
| Part | Shows |
|---|---|
| Trace list | Captured traces, newest first. |
| Waterfall | The selected trace’s spans, indented by depth, each with a bar for its offset and duration. |
| Span tree | The trace’s spans nested by parent, each with its attributes and the logs written under it. |
| Control | Key | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Pause / Resume | p | Stop or restart capture. The server keeps running and captured traces stay. |
| Errors | e | Show only failed traces. Esc returns to all. |
| Clear | c | Empty the local history. |
None of these restarts the server or changes its state, and none affects your exporters.
Capture and export
| Setting | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Your exporters | Keep exporting. The receiver is an extra destination, removed when the Server page closes. |
| Disabled telemetry, signal settings, sampling | Respected: the receiver sees only what your configuration emits. |
| Signals | Traces and logs. Other signals go only to your own destinations. |
The runtime adds the receiver as a destination named __local_inspector, through a private lease in
ELIDE_OTEL_INSPECTOR; it is separate from OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_*. See
Local inspection.
Limits
| Limit | Value |
|---|---|
| Records kept | 512 |
| Record data kept | 4 MiB |
| Age | Five minutes |
| Request body | 2 MiB |
| Formats | OTLP/HTTP protobuf or JSON, optionally gzip-compressed |
The oldest records go first when a limit is reached; the capture line counts evicted, rejected and truncated records. Spans of a static server measure request handling through building the response, not delivery to the client.
Next
That is the whole loop: tests, debugger, coverage, build, server and traces, in one terminal. When a view does not open or a command prints text where you expected a view, Troubleshooting names the cause.