---
title: "Resources | Grafana Labs"
description: "Documentation for each stage of the tracing pipeline, from instrumentation to storage."
---

> For a curated documentation index, see [llms.txt](/llms.txt). For the complete documentation index, see [llms-full.txt](/llms-full.txt).

## Resources

You followed a trace through the four-stage pipeline: instrument, send, store, and query. These docs go deeper on each stage when you’re ready to set one up.

## Documentation

- [Instrument your applications](/docs/grafana-cloud/send-data/traces/set-up/instrument-apps/): Produce spans from your application with OpenTelemetry.
- [OpenTelemetry documentation](https://opentelemetry.io/docs/): The open, vendor-neutral standard most teams use to instrument applications.
- [Send traces to Grafana Cloud](/docs/grafana-cloud/send-data/traces/): Move spans to a backend with a collector such as Grafana Alloy.
- [Adaptive Traces](/docs/grafana-cloud/cost-management-and-billing/adaptive-telemetry/adaptive-traces/): Control trace volume and cost by automatically keeping your most valuable traces.
- [Grafana Cloud Traces](/docs/grafana-cloud/traces/): The managed backend that stores and queries your traces.
- [Grafana Tempo](/docs/tempo/latest/introduction/architecture/): The open-source tracing backend you can run yourself.