Google Cloud Observability release notes

The following limits associated with the Cloud Trace API, cloudtrace.googleapis.com, have increased:

• Maximum attributes per span: 1,024
• Maximum attribute value size: 65,532 bytes
• Maximum attribute key size: 512 bytes
• Maximum span name length: 1,024 bytes
• Maximum events per span: 256

The new limits are consistent with those supported by the Telemetry API, which implements the OpenTelemetry Protocol (OTLP).

For more information, see Cloud Trace API quotas and limits.

The Telemetry API for logs ingestion is generally available (GA). You can ingest OTLP logs into Cloud Logging by using an OpenTelemetry Collector, an OTLP exporter, and the Telemetry API. For more information, see OTLP ingestion overview.

Error Reporting can report stack traces collected from Rust applications using std::backtrace. To enable, set the RUST_BACKTRACE=1 environment variable and make sure debug symbols are enabled.

For more information, see ReportedErrorEvent.

The following remote MCP servers automatically generate a trace span for tools/call operations. These spans can help you understand the behavior of your agentic applications. For more information, see Investigate MCP calls using Trace.

• Cloud Billing
• Personalized Service Health

Google Cloud Observability automatically generates trace exemplars for charts on custom dashboards that display the result of a SQL query when the query runs against your trace data and satisfies some constraints. The exemplars link the SQL query result to specific traces. This feature is in Preview.

For more information, see Generate and display trace exemplars.

The Telemetry API for metric ingestion is generally available (GA). You can ingest OTLP metrics into Cloud Monitoring by using an OpenTelemetry Collector, an OTLP exporter, and the Telemetry API. For more information, see OTLP metric ingestion overview.

Alerting policies based on PromQL queries can now operate over more than 25 hours of data. For more information, see Query over 2 years of metric data and Limits for alerting.

Google Cloud Observability has expanded the supported locations for observability buckets, which store your trace data, to include the following:

• europe-west9

For a list of supported locations, see Locations for observability buckets.

Support for applying role-based access controls (RBAC) to Cloud Monitoring dashboards and alerting policies using Tags is generally available.

You can use Tags to protect Terraform-managed Cloud Monitoring resources and configure team-scoped access. For more information, see Use Tags to control access to resources.

If the parent project for a Cloud Storage bucket changes, a log sink stops routing log entries to that bucket. For more information about error messages and recovery options, see Errors routing to Cloud Storage.

Metrics Explorer can automatically break down a chart into a series of tiles, with each displaying time-series data for a specific label key. This view helps you identify spikes, dips, or trends that the aggregation settings might otherwise hide.

To learn more, see Break down a chart by labels.

The Cloud Logging API adds support for the ca regional endpoint. For a complete list of regional endpoints, see the REST reference pages.

You can collect, view, and analyze multimodal prompts and responses from your agentic applications that use the LangGraph or Agent Development Kit (ADK) frameworks. This feature is generally available (GA).

• Instrument generative AI applications
• Collect and view multimodal prompts and responses

All agent.googleapis.com/processes metrics are retained for 24 months. For more information, see Data retention.

The Trace API supports regional endpoints. For a list of supported endpoints, see the REST API reference pages:

• v1 REST reference
• v2 REST reference

Custom dashboards can display trace data. You can view individual spans or aggregated data. This feature is public preview. For more information, see the following:

• Display trace data (Google Cloud console)
• Dashboard with trace data (API)

Custom dashboards can display trace data. You can view individual spans or aggregated data. This feature is public preview. For more information, see Display traces on a custom dashboard.

To view the instrumentation scope or the schema associated with a span, open the Details view for the span and select the Metadata & Links tab. For more information, see View attributes, log entries, and events.

Support for Histogram widgets on custom dashboards is generally available. These widgets extract the most recent value from each time series, group those values into ranges, and then provide a graphical representation of the result. Unlike tables or other widgets that display the most recent values, Histograms display information about the relative frequency of ranges of values.

This widget is one of several visualizations that you can use to display the most recent values. For more information, see the following documents:

• Configure a histogram (Google Cloud console)
• Dashboard with an XyChart configured as a histogram (API)

The create-observability bucket flow enforces organization policies with constraints on resource locations. This flow also enforces policies that require customer-managed encryption keys (CMEKs) and that restrict the projects that store those keys. Your trace data is stored in an observability bucket.

For more information, see the following:

• Set defaults for observability buckets
• Support for CMEKs

The details page for a span can display the call hierarchy of a trace by using a directed acyclic graph (DAG). If you view an Application Monitoring dashboard and explore the trace data that it displays, the flyout supports the DAG option. If you open the Trace Explorer page and explore a span, the DAG option is also available.

For more information, see the following:

• Application Monitoring: Explore a trace
• Trace Explorer: Explore a trace

The details page for a span can display the call hierarchy of a trace using a directed acyclic graph (DAG). One way to view a span's details is to open the Trace Explorer page and select the span. The DAG view is also available for some integrations. For example, if you view an Application Monitoring dashboard and explore the trace data it displays, the flyout supports the DAG option.

For more information, see the following:

• Trace Explorer: Explore a trace
• Application Monitoring: Explore a trace

You can view the available regional endpoints for the Cloud Logging API on the REST reference pages. For an example, see Method: projects.locations.buckets.list.

You can view the available regional endpoints for the Observability API and for the Telemetry API on their REST reference pages. For more information, see API overview.

You can view the available regional endpoints for the Error Reporting API on the REST reference pages. For an example, see Method: projects.events.list.

Cloud Trace in Observability Analytics is generally available (GA). Observability Analytics lets you query and analyze your trace data by using SQL. You can chart your query results, save your queries, and join your trace and log data.

For more information, see the following documents:

• Query and analyze telemetry with Observability Analytics.
• Chart SQL query results
• Sample SQL queries
• Analyze trace data with BigQuery.

The Observability API is generally available (GA). This API lets you configure the following:

• The default storage location and the default encryption key for your trace data.
• The observability scope.
• A linked BigQuery dataset, which lets your use BigQuery services to analyze your trace data.

For more information, see the following documents:

• Set defaults for observability buckets
• Configure observability scopes for multi-project queries
• Manage observability buckets
• API overview

Trace scopes are generally available (GA). For more information, see Create and manage trace scopes.

The following remote MCP servers automatically generate a trace span for tools/call operations. These spans can help you understand the behavior of your agentic applications. For more information, see Investigate MCP calls using Trace.

• BigQuery
• Cloud SQL

Starting with version 2.66.0, the Ops Agent can export your logs and metrics by using the OpenTelemetry-based Telemetry API rather than by using the Cloud Logging API and Cloud Monitoring API. During the preview Preview period, you can opt-in to using the Telemetry API. For more information, see Use the Telemetry API.

Starting with version 2.66.0, the Ops Agent can export your metrics and logs by using the OpenTelemetry-based Telemetry API rather than by using the Cloud Monitoring API and Cloud Logging API. During the preview Preview period, you can opt-in to using the Telemetry API. For more information, see Use the Telemetry API.

Google Cloud Observability has expanded the supported locations for observability buckets, which store your trace data, to include the following:

• asia-northeast1
• asia-southeast1
• me-west2
• southamerica-east1
• us-west4

For a list of supported locations, see Locations for observability buckets.