tracing-texray

tracing-texray is a tracing layer to introspect spans and events in plain text. By examine-ing a specific span, a full tree will be output when that span exits. Using code like the following (actual program elided):

fn main() {
    // initialize & install as the global subscriber
    tracing_texray::init();
    // examine the `load_data` span:
    tracing_texray::examine(tracing::info_span!("load_data")).in_scope(|| {
        do_a_thing()
    });
}

fn do_a_thing() {
    // ...
}

You would see the following output printed to stderr:

load_data                                52ms ├────────────────────────────────┤
  download_results{uri: www.crates.io}   11ms                ├─────┤
   >URI resolved                                             ┼
   >connected                                                   ┼
  compute_stats                          10ms                        ├─────┤
  render_response                         6ms                               ├──┤

In cases where a more powerful solution like tracing-chrome is not required, tracing-texray can render lightweight timeline of what happened when.

Usage

tracing-texray combines two pieces: a global subscriber, and local span examination. By default, tracing-texray won't print anything—it just sits in the background. But: once a span is examine'd, tracing-texray will track the span and all of its children. When the span exits, span diagnostics will be printed to stderr (or another impl io::Write as configured).

First, the layer must be installed globally:

use std::time::Duration;
use tracing_texray::TeXRayLayer;
use tracing_subscriber::{Registry, EnvFilter, layer::SubscriberExt};
fn main() {
    // Option A: Exclusively using tracing_texray:
    tracing_texray::init();
    
    // Option B: install the layer in combination with other layers, eg. tracing_subscriber::fmt:
    let subscriber = Registry::default()
        .with(EnvFilter::try_from_default_env().expect("invalid env filter"))
        .with(tracing_subscriber::fmt::layer())
        .with(
            TeXRayLayer::new()
                // by default, all metadata fields will be printed. If this is too noisy,
                // fitler only the fields you care about
                .only_show_fields(&["name", "operation", "service"])
                // only print spans longer than a certain duration
                .min_duration(Duration::from_millis(100)),
        );
    tracing::subscriber::set_global_default(subscriber).unwrap();
}

Next, wrap any spans you want to track with examine:

use tracing::info_span;
use tracing_texray::examine;

fn somewhere_deep_in_my_program() {
    tracing_texray::examine(info_span!("do_a_thing")).in_scope(|| {
        for id in 0..5 {
            some_other_function(id);
        }
    })
}

fn some_other_function(id: usize) {
    info_span!("inner_task", id = %id).in_scope(|| tracing::info!("buzz"));
    // ...
}

For functions decorated with #[tracing::instrument], the span handle isn't directly available — call examine_current() from inside the function body instead:

use tracing::info_span;

#[tracing::instrument(name = "do_a_thing", skip_all)]
fn somewhere_deep_in_my_program() {
    tracing_texray::examine_current();
    for id in 0..5 {
        info_span!("inner_task", id = %id).in_scope(|| tracing::info!("buzz"));
    }
}

When the do_a_thing span exits, output like the following will be printed:

do_a_thing           509μs ├───────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
  inner_task{id: 0}   92μs         ├────────┤
   >buzz                             ┼
  inner_task{id: 1}   36μs                       ├──┤
   >buzz                                         ┼
  inner_task{id: 2}   35μs                               ├──┤
   >buzz                                                 ┼
  inner_task{id: 3}   36μs                                         ├──┤
   >buzz                                                           ┼
  inner_task{id: 4}   35μs                                                 ├──┤
   >buzz                                                                   ┼

RAM tracking

TeXRayLayer::track_ram() enables per-span RSS sampling. Each examined span records the process's resident-set size on entry and exit, plus the high-water mark (VmHWM). Below the timeline, a RAM: block shows the trajectory and peak per span:

use tracing_texray::TeXRayLayer;

let layer = TeXRayLayer::new().track_ram();
# drop(layer);

prove                          1.4s ├──────────────────────────────────────┤
  stage1_commit                30ms ├─┤
  ...

RAM:
  prove           RSS 320.00 MiB → 338.00 MiB (Δ +18.00 MiB)   peak 471.96 MiB
    stage1_commit RSS 320.00 MiB → 368.00 MiB (Δ +48.00 MiB)   peak 371.90 MiB
    ...

The RSS start → end trajectory plus the peak make transient allocations visible: a span ending well below its peak (e.g. prove above ending at 338 MiB but peaking at 472) freed memory before exiting. RSS sampling reads /proc/self/status, so it's Linux-only — non-Linux samples report zero and the RAM: block is suppressed.