Distributed tracing

The Google Cloud CLI version 586.0.0 includes the following changes:

Added create and update methods to the gcloud observability buckets command group.

You can use Terraform to configure resources managed by the Observability API.

For example, you can use Terraform to create and update observability buckets, create links on datasets, and configure default settings.

The following remote Google Cloud MCP servers automatically generate a trace span for tools/call operations.

Identity and Access Management

The Observability API supports VPC Service Controls.

This integration is generally available.

Starting August 31, 2026, you can no longer create or edit trace sinks.

Trace sinks were deprecated on February 18, 2026. For more information, see Export trace spans with sinks deprecation.

The following remote MCP server automatically generates a trace span for tools/call operations.

Datastream

You can manually create the _Trace observability bucket before your project receives trace data.

When creating the bucket, you must specify a storage location. Google Cloud Observability applies the Cloud KMS key defined in your default settings unless you explicitly specify a different key in your create request.

You can update the display name, description, and Cloud KMS key applied to a _Trace observability bucket.

For more information, see Update observability buckets.

The following remote MCP servers automatically generate a trace span for tools/call operations.

Policy Troubleshooter

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

Maximum attributes per span: 1,024