---
title: "Tempo architecture reference | Grafana Tempo documentation"
description: "Detailed reference for the Tempo architecture, components, and design decisions."
---

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

# Tempo architecture reference

This section provides a detailed technical reference for the Grafana Tempo architecture. For a high-level overview, refer to the [Tempo architecture](/docs/tempo/next/introduction/architecture/) page.

- [About the architecture](/docs/tempo/next/reference-tempo-architecture/about-tempo-architecture/)
- [Components](/docs/tempo/next/reference-tempo-architecture/components/)
- [Partition ring](/docs/tempo/next/reference-tempo-architecture/partition-ring/)
- [Deployment modes](/docs/tempo/next/reference-tempo-architecture/deployment-modes/)
- [Block format](/docs/tempo/next/reference-tempo-architecture/block-format/)
- [Object storage](/docs/tempo/next/reference-tempo-architecture/object-storage/)