---
title: "Read a trace yourself | Grafana Labs"
description: "Open a real trace on the public demo and read its span waterfall hands-on, with no account or setup."
---

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

## Read a trace yourself

You’ve seen how you reach a trace view. Now open a real trace and read its span waterfall yourself.

The hands-on path below runs on the public `play.grafana.org` demo, so you need no account and no setup. It lands you on a real trace with a ready-made query, then walks you through reading its span waterfall: the shape, the parent and child nesting, the durations, and the service and operation names. You open a span for its attributes, then compare a healthy request with a failed one to see how a trace’s shape alone can tell you what happened.

Learning path

#### Read a trace

Open a real trace with live demo data and learn to read its span waterfall (nesting, durations, and attributes) with no account or setup.

15 min

Beginner

Docs & blog posts

#### Open in Grafana Cloud

Complete this learning path directly in your Grafana Cloud stack, or in the Grafana Play stack, with an interactive learning experience.

[Open in Grafana Cloud]() [Try in Grafana Play]()

[View on website](/docs/learning-paths/read-a-trace/)

When you finish, you have the core skill, and it transfers to any trace on any surface. Two next steps build on that skill: a query language for finding specific traces on purpose, and connecting a trace to your other signals. The next two slides cover each one.