Tempo

Tempo is an open source, high-scale distributed tracing backend from Grafana Labs. Designed for cost-efficient, object storage-backed trace storage with minimal operational overhead. Integrates with popular open telemetry standards including OpenTelemetry, Jaeger, Zipkin, and W3C Trace Context. Provides HTTP query APIs for trace retrieval, search, tag discovery, and metrics generation.

Tempo publishes 5 APIs on the APIs.io network, including Health API, Metrics API, Search API, and 2 more. Tagged areas include Distributed Tracing, Observability, OpenTelemetry, Grafana, and Monitoring.

The Tempo catalog on APIs.io includes 1 JSON-LD context and 2 Spectral governance rulesets.

Tempo’s developer surface includes documentation, release notes, engineering blog, getting-started guide, and 17 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Source on GitHub

51.1/100 developing ▼ -5.2 Agent 28/100 agent aware Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-07-28 · rubric v0.6

AccessFreemium

6 APIs

Distributed TracingObservabilityOpenTelemetryGrafanaMonitoring

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-07-28 · rubric v0.6

Composite quality — 51.1/100 · developing

Contract Quality 14.8 / 25

Developer Ergonomics 5.2 / 20

Commercial Clarity 9.5 / 20

Operational Transparency 6.8 / 13

Governance 8.3 / 12

Discoverability 6.5 / 10

Agent readiness — 28/100 · agent aware

Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 10 / 10

MCP Server 0 / 12

Machine-Readable Auth 0 / 10

Idempotency 0 / 9

Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8

Request/Response Examples 7 / 7

Rate-Limit Signaling 7 / 7

Typed Event Surface 0 / 6

Agent Skills 0 / 5

Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4

Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

A2A Agent Card 0 / 8

Dry-Run / Simulate Mode 0 / 4

Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. This rating is computed from github.com/api-evangelist/tempo: open an issue to ask a question, or submit a pull request to add artifacts. Want it done for you? Prioritized profiling — $2,500 →

APIs 6

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

Rate Limits 1

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

Tempo Rate Limits

5 limits

RATE LIMITS

FinOps 1

Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.

JSON Schema 1

Standalone JSON Schema definitions for this provider's data models.

Examples 2

Example request and response payloads for these APIs.

AGENTIC

Resources

Get Started 1

Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call

GettingStarted

GettingStarted

Documentation 3

Reference material describing how the API behaves

Documentation

Documentation

OpenAPI

OpenAPI

JSONSchema

JSONSchema

Agent Surfaces 1

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

AgenticAccess

AgenticAccess

Design & Contract 4

Pagination, idempotency, versioning, errors, and events

JSONLD

JSONStructure

SpectralRules

Vocabulary

Build 2

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

GitHubRepository

GitHubRepository

GitHubOrganization

GitHubOrganization

Access & Security 2

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

TrustCenter

TrustCenter

DomainSecurity

DomainSecurity

Operate 3

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

ReleaseNotes

ReleaseNotes

Community

Community

Slack

Slack

Company 3

The organization behind the API

LinkedIn

Website

Website

Blog

Blog

Other 2

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

Helm Chart

Helm Chart

Docker Hub

Docker Hub

Source (apis.yml)

accessModel:
  pricing: freemium
  onboarding: unknown
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Freemium
  confidence: medium
  source:
  - plans
  generated: '2026-07-22'
  method: derived
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/tempo.png
name: Tempo
description: Tempo is an open source, high-scale distributed tracing backend from Grafana Labs. Designed for cost-efficient,
  object storage-backed trace storage with minimal operational overhead. Integrates with popular open telemetry standards
  including OpenTelemetry, Jaeger, Zipkin, and W3C Trace Context. Provides HTTP query APIs for trace retrieval, search, tag
  discovery, and metrics generation.
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/tempo/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
created: '2026-03-25'
modified: '2026-05-19'
specificationVersion: '0.19'
tags:
- Distributed Tracing
- Observability
- OpenTelemetry
- Grafana
- Monitoring
apis:
- name: Tempo TraceQL API
  description: TraceQL is a query language developed for Grafana Tempo that allows filtering and selecting spans within traces.
    The TraceQL search API endpoint enables rich span-level filtering using a pipeline syntax with attribute matchers, duration
    filters, and structural operators.
  humanURL: https://grafana.com/docs/tempo/latest/traceql/
  baseURL: http://localhost:3200
  tags:
  - Distributed Tracing
  - Query Language
  - TraceQL
  - Observability
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://grafana.com/docs/tempo/latest/traceql/
  - type: Reference
    url: https://grafana.com/docs/tempo/latest/traceql/query-editor/
- aid: tempo:tempo-health-api
  name: Tempo Health API
  description: Health and readiness endpoints
  humanURL: https://grafana.com/docs/tempo/latest/api_docs/
  baseURL: http://localhost:3200
  tags:
  - Health
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/tempo-health-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://grafana.com/docs/tempo/latest/api_docs/
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/grafana/tempo
- aid: tempo:tempo-metrics-api
  name: Tempo Metrics API
  description: Generate metrics from trace data
  humanURL: https://grafana.com/docs/tempo/latest/api_docs/
  baseURL: http://localhost:3200
  tags:
  - Metrics
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/tempo-metrics-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://grafana.com/docs/tempo/latest/api_docs/
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/grafana/tempo
- aid: tempo:tempo-search-api
  name: Tempo Search API
  description: Search traces and spans using TraceQL
  humanURL: https://grafana.com/docs/tempo/latest/api_docs/
  baseURL: http://localhost:3200
  tags:
  - Search
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/tempo-search-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://grafana.com/docs/tempo/latest/api_docs/
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/grafana/tempo
- aid: tempo:tempo-tags-api
  name: Tempo Tags API
  description: Discover tag keys and values in trace data
  humanURL: https://grafana.com/docs/tempo/latest/api_docs/
  baseURL: http://localhost:3200
  tags:
  - Tags
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/tempo-tags-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://grafana.com/docs/tempo/latest/api_docs/
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/grafana/tempo
- aid: tempo:tempo-traces-api
  name: Tempo Traces API
  description: Retrieve individual traces by trace ID
  humanURL: https://grafana.com/docs/tempo/latest/api_docs/
  baseURL: http://localhost:3200
  tags:
  - Traces
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/tempo-traces-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://grafana.com/docs/tempo/latest/api_docs/
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/grafana/tempo
common:
- type: AgenticAccess
  url: agentic-access/tempo-agentic-access.yml
- type: TrustCenter
  url: security/tempo-trust-center.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/tempo-domain-security.yml
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tempohq
- type: Website
  url: https://grafana.com/oss/tempo/
- type: Documentation
  url: https://grafana.com/docs/tempo/latest/
- type: GitHubRepository
  url: https://github.com/grafana/tempo
- type: GitHubOrganization
  url: https://github.com/grafana
- type: Helm Chart
  url: https://grafana.github.io/helm-charts
- type: Docker Hub
  url: https://hub.docker.com/r/grafana/tempo
- type: ReleaseNotes
  url: https://github.com/grafana/tempo/releases
- type: Community
  url: https://community.grafana.com/c/grafana-tempo/
- type: Slack
  url: https://grafana.slack.com/archives/C01BULREPHA
- type: Blog
  url: https://grafana.com/blog/tag/traces/
- type: GettingStarted
  url: https://grafana.com/docs/tempo/latest/getting-started/
- type: OpenAPI
  url: openapi/tempo-openapi.yml
- type: JSONLD
  url: json-ld/tempo-context.jsonld
- type: JSONSchema
  url: json-schema/tempo-trace-schema.json
- type: JSONStructure
  url: json-structure/tempo-trace-structure.json
- type: SpectralRules
  url: rules/tempo-rules.yml
- type: Vocabulary
  url: vocabulary/tempo-vocabulary.yml
- type: Integrations
  url: https://grafana.com/integrations/
integrations:
- name: All visualization integrations
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com
  url: https://apievangelist.com

Tempo

APIs 6

Open Collections 1

Pricing Plans 1