What is the telemetry component that represents a series of related distributed events that encode the end-to-end request flow through a distributed system?

Metrics are numerical measurements collected over time, typically aggregated, and do not represent the sequential flow of a single request.

Logs are discrete, timestamped events generated by applications or systems, but they typically provide granular details for individual operations rather than the overarching end-to-end request flow.

Spans are individual operations within a trace, representing a unit of work or a call between services, but a trace is the collection of these related spans forming the complete request path.

A trace captures the full lifecycle of a request as it propagates through various services and components in a distributed architecture, providing context for each operation and its duration.