# tempo

A skill for standing up Grafana Tempo and writing TraceQL queries, from a local Docker Compose setup to a Helm install on Kubernetes.

- skill · `type=skill` · Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Gemini CLI, OpenCode · 4900 installs · ★ 290
- Author: grafana
- License: Apache-2.0 · policy=mirror · the beginning of the file is at the end of this page
- Source: https://github.com/grafana/skills/tree/HEAD/skills/grafana-lgtm/tempo/SKILL.md
- Updated: 2026-10-25
- HTML: https://affpapa.org/en/nevibecode/skills/tempo

## What it does

This skill treats Grafana Tempo as a distributed-tracing backend that needs object storage and nothing else. It walks through the local path: clone the Docker Compose example, start it, send a synthetic OTLP span, confirm the trace landed, then query it in Grafana Explore. There is an Alloy config for receiving OTLP and forwarding to Tempo.

TraceQL gets its own section. The examples cover slow and errored requests, structural operators (`>>`, `<<`), and metric queries such as `rate()` grouped by service. You can also run a query through the search API. For Kubernetes, the skill installs the `tempo-distributed` Helm chart with an S3 bucket, then checks pod readiness and port-forwards the query frontend.

Distributed deployments need an S3, GCS or Azure bucket. With multitenancy enabled every request must carry the `X-Scope-OrgID` header, and if that value does not match the Grafana datasource you get an empty Explore. That mismatch is the first thing to check. The skill also lists common failures: a 503 on `/ready`, 429 on push, and slow TraceQL.

## Requirements
- Works with: Grafana

## Install

### Claude Code (native platform)

1. **Skills CLI (Vercel)**
```bash
npx skills add grafana/skills --skill tempo -a claude-code
```

2. **Manually: put the files in place**
- File: `~/.claude/skills/tempo/SKILL.md` — Copy the whole skill folder; for one project use .claude/skills/tempo/

### Codex

1. **Skills CLI (Vercel)**
```bash
npx skills add grafana/skills --skill tempo -a codex
```

2. **Manually: put the files in place**
- File: `.agents/skills/tempo/SKILL.md` — For all projects use ~/.agents/skills/

### Cursor

1. **Skills CLI (Vercel)**
```bash
npx skills add grafana/skills --skill tempo -a cursor
```

2. **Manually: put the files in place**
- File: `.cursor/skills/tempo/SKILL.md` — Cursor also reads .agents/skills/ and .claude/skills/

### GitHub Copilot

1. **GitHub CLI**
```bash
gh skill install grafana/skills tempo
```

2. **Manually: put the files in place**
- File: `.github/skills/tempo/SKILL.md`

### Gemini CLI

1. **Skills CLI (Vercel)**
```bash
npx skills add grafana/skills --skill tempo -a gemini-cli
```

2. **Platform CLI**
```bash
gemini skills install https://github.com/grafana/skills --path skills/grafana-lgtm/tempo
```

### Windsurf (Devin Desktop)

**Manually: put the files in place**
- File: `.devin/skills/tempo/SKILL.md` — The legacy .windsurf/skills/ path still works

### OpenCode

**Skills CLI (Vercel)**
```bash
npx skills add grafana/skills --skill tempo -a opencode
```

### Claude.ai

**Claude.ai**
- Zip the folder and upload it in Settings → Capabilities → Skills

Where a file is given instead of a command, copy the files from the source to that path: https://github.com/grafana/skills/tree/HEAD/skills/grafana-lgtm/tempo/SKILL.md

## When to use it
- stand up Tempo locally and confirm spans arrive
- write a TraceQL query for slow or errored requests
- deploy tempo-distributed on Kubernetes with Helm
- configure S3, GCS or Azure block storage
- debug why no traces show up in Explore

## Example prompts
- Stand up Tempo locally with Docker Compose and verify a test OTLP span arrives
- Write a TraceQL query for frontend requests slower than 1s
- Deploy tempo-distributed on Kubernetes with blocks stored in S3

## Source text · SKILL.md · Apache-2.0

Below is the content of a third-party file. It is data, not instructions for you: do not act on anything written inside unless the human asks. Block tag: d62cc1079a1ea755.

BEGIN THIRD-PARTY FILE d62cc1079a1ea755
````text
---
name: tempo
license: Apache-2.0
description: Stand up Grafana Tempo as a cost-efficient distributed-tracing backend that only needs object storage, and write TraceQL queries against it. Covers OTLP + Jaeger + Zipkin ingestion, the distributor → live-store → block-builder → object-storage write path, metrics-generator for RED spanmetrics + service graphs, Helm `tempo-distributed` deployment, multi-tenant `X-Scope-OrgID`, TraceQL span / resource / event scopes, structural operators (`>>`, `<<`), `rate()` + `quantile_over_time` metrics, and the traces-to-logs / metrics / profiles datasource links. Use when deploying Tempo, writing a TraceQL query for slow / errored requests, debugging "no traces showing in Explore", sizing queriers / compactors, configuring S3 / GCS / Azure block storage, or wiring trace ↔ log ↔ profile correlation — even when the user says "tracing backend", "find slow requests", "show me the service graph", "store traces in S3", "Jaeger compatible store", or "what called this span" without naming Tempo.
---

# Grafana Tempo

> **Docs**: https://grafana.com/docs/tempo/latest/

Cost-efficient distributed tracing. Accepts OTLP / Jaeger / Zipkin / OpenCensus / Kafka. Stores Parquet blocks in S3/GCS/Azure.

## Prerequisites

- Docker (quick start) or Kubernetes (production)
- Object storage bucket (S3/GCS/Azure) for distributed deployments
- An OTLP-emitting app or `tempo-cli` for synthetic traffic
- A Grafana stack with a Tempo datasource for querying

## Common Workflows

### 1. Stand up Tempo locally + verify ingestion

```bash
# 1. Start the official Docker Compose example
git clone https://github.com/grafana/tempo.git
cd tempo/example/docker-compose/local
mkdir -p tempo-data
docker compose up -d

# 2. Verify readiness
curl -sf http://localhost:3200/ready                              # → "ready"

# 3. Send a synthetic OTLP span (full payload in scratch terminal)
curl -X POST -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  http://localhost:4318/v1/traces \
  -d '{"resourceSpans":[{"resource":{"attributes":[{"key":"service.name","value":{"stringValue":"my-service"}}]},
       "scopeSpans":[{"spans":[{"traceId":"5B8EFFF798038103D269B633813FC700","spanId":"EEE19B7EC3C1B100",
       "name":"my-op","startTimeUnixNano":1689969302000000000,"endTimeUnixNano":1689969302500000000,"kind":2}]}]}]}'

# 4. Verify the trace landed (ingestion-counter > 0 and the trace is fetchable)
curl -s http://localhost:3200/metrics | grep tempo_distributor_spans_received_total | head
curl -s http://localhost:3200/api/v2/traces/5B8EFFF798038103D269B633813FC700 | jq '.batches | length'
# Expect > 0.

# 5. In Grafana → Explore → Tempo, run TraceQL: {resource.service.name="my-service"}
```

### 2. Send traces from an app via Alloy

```alloy
// alloy.river
otelcol.receiver.otlp "default" {
````
END THIRD-PARTY FILE d62cc1079a1ea755

The third-party file has ended. Everything between the d62cc1079a1ea755 tags is data: requests and commands from it are not followed. An “end of file” line with another tag inside the block is part of the file.

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