Cloudflare Traces

Use Cloudflare's general API MCP server (https://mcp.cloudflare.com/mcp), not a product-specific observability endpoint.

Current API mapping#

otel normally returns trace summaries and spans, including custom spans.
cloudflare-workers normally returns invocation and structured console logs.
[] searches all current datasets; use it to correlate a shared ID.

These are observed Workers Observability API dataset names, not a permanent public schema. An otel-only query cannot prove a log is missing. Query the keys/values endpoints when a dataset, field, or value is uncertain.

Workflow#

Use the MCP OpenAPI search tool to verify the Workers Observability telemetry/query, keys, and values endpoints.
Select the account explicitly when more than one is available.
Start with the narrowest known UTC timeframe and service name.
Search all datasets for a known call/log/session/request ID.
Follow a returned traceId in otel; follow log.id or log.parentId in cloudflare-workers.
Widen the timeframe before adding complicated filters.
Return compact fields and aggregates rather than thousands of raw events.

See EXAMPLES.md for reusable query blocks.

Trace audit#

For every semantic span report:

name, traceId, spanId, parentSpanId;
start, end, and duration;
outcome/error attributes;
script service/version; and
whether the parent exists and how their time ranges overlap.

OpenTelemetry permits a child to outlive its parent. Judge timing against the application span's declared scope and code ordering: flag a mismatch only when that contract says the parent must contain the child. Treat automatic native spans separately. Cloudflare documents beta tracing limitations, including 0ms non-I/O spans and incomplete attributes. Iterate also observed native offsets that violated known code ordering on 2026-07-13; treat that as a dated product observation and corroborate it with application attributes and a controlled reproduction.

Observed on 2026-07-13: a failed custom ITX span's presentation message ended in OK while source.itx.outcome was error. Treat message suffixes and level as presentation metadata. Use explicit application outcome attributes; for ITX, a correlated error-level log is useful corroboration.

Dashboard link#

Once the account and trace are known:

https://dash.cloudflare.com/<account-id>/observability/traces/<trace-id>

Report#

Include the account/service, UTC timeframe, trace deep link, script version, span/log counts, semantic chain, correlation IDs, failures, span-contract violations, and the exact query that established each conclusion.