---
title: "Components | Grafana Tempo documentation"
description: "Detailed reference for each Tempo component."
---

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

# Components

Tempo is composed of several components, each responsible for a specific part of the trace lifecycle. All components are compiled into the same binary, and the `-target` parameter controls which component runs.

This section documents each component in detail, including its responsibilities, configuration, failure modes, and relevant metrics.

- [Distributor](/docs/tempo/next/reference-tempo-architecture/components/distributor/)
- [Kafka](/docs/tempo/next/reference-tempo-architecture/components/kafka/)
- [Block-builder](/docs/tempo/next/reference-tempo-architecture/components/block-builder/)
- [Live-store](/docs/tempo/next/reference-tempo-architecture/components/live-store/)
- [Query frontend](/docs/tempo/next/reference-tempo-architecture/components/query-frontend/)
- [Querier](/docs/tempo/next/reference-tempo-architecture/components/querier/)
- [Compaction](/docs/tempo/next/reference-tempo-architecture/components/compaction/)
- [Metrics-generator](/docs/tempo/next/reference-tempo-architecture/components/metrics-generator/)