jaegertracing/jaeger

Allow viewing multiple trace results on a single timeline

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#2544 opened on Oct 8, 2020

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enhancementhelp wantedui

Description

#1938 Requirement - what kind of business use case are you trying to solve?

Certain workflows that contact our system create high level call patterns. In these patterns there may be several separate calls made across services. Each are tagged with the same jaeger-debug-id as a trace id. Since they are separate calls they result in separate traces which are related by the provided trace id. It is often necessary to view all of these separate traces as one large trace on a single timeline for better context.

For example: Same trace id tag - separate trace results, can only view each separately image

One Proposal - Those results collapsed into one timeline (wide trace): image

In which all traces are viewable on one timeline: image

Problem - what in Jaeger blocks you from solving the requirement?

When querying a user supplied trace tag, all the traces are separate. The current shim approach I've implemented is a proxy in between the jaeger back-end and the front-end which aggregates separate traces from search results into a single wide trace on 1 timeline. Although this is adequate for immediate needs, it would be ideal for the UI to offer an option to select several trace results and display them on a single timeline.

Proposal - what do you suggest to solve the problem or improve the existing situation?

First thought is to extend the concept of comparing traces, by allowing users to select multiple traces and display them together on a single timeline. Ideally we'd be able to view results from several services at the same time. I'm not sure what that means for the existing Service form field. Perhaps an alternate idea is to allow adding results to a "bucket" or "shopping cart" then view them all as one timeline.

Any open questions to address

Is at all possible with the UI as it exists today?

Contributor guide

Tech stack
gojavascriptreact
Domain
frontend
Issue type
feature
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
4
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
3-5 days
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
stale
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
clear
Prerequisites
React knowledgeUnderstanding of Jaeger tracing data model
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
30
Research direction
Investigate the Jaeger UI codebase, particularly the trace comparison feature and search results page. Look at how individual traces are rendered and consider extending the timeline to display multiple traces simultaneously. Review the comments in issue #2544 for user expectations and any prior discussion on implementation approaches. No linked PRs or explicit maintainer guidance exists, so the contributor should propose a design and seek feedback.