Why Is Searching for Traces So Difficult and Complicated?

·Aug 19, 2026 12:26 PM(edited)·

Hi team... I'm trying to search for a trace and its unclear to me why searching for traces is SOOO hard: specifically -- search relevance rankings are incorrect. I have one of two undesirable options to choose from:

1.
Type attributes.input.value contains press <space> and hope/pray that the autocomplete list includes the magical JSON string that will find the message I'm looking for

2. Use an "AI" search. I've tried that ... and the resulting query has my search result in position 10 When I look for the logical string below -- the search result I'm looking for appears 10th in the search results

attributes.input.value contains 'this as well'

To find the result I'm actually looking for I have to send over this unintuitive JSON blob

attributes.input.value contains '{"message": "this as well!", "has_image": true, "images": 1}'

4 comments

· Sorted by Oldest

Omair I.
·
·
No thanks: I don't want to use AI. I want to know the deterministic syntax that I can run to get the results I want
Omair I.
·
·
Can you tell me how to look for traces that include 'this as well' in the input?
Omair I.
·
·
Are you saying you want to be able to filter based on sub values inside the JSON in the input column?
No: my goal is to search for traces where the Input column for a trace contains a given value (see sample trace in the 3rd attached image) If I run this search.. you can tell from the screenshot
attributes.openinference.span.kind = 'CHAIN' AND attributes.input.value contains '{"message": "this as well!", "has_image": true, "images": 1}'
that the Input column just has the text this as well! .... that's part of why I'm confused about why the search query is so complicated for an Input column lists text. Running a search for attributes.input.value contains 'this as well' returns the results you see in screenshot 2... The Input column values in the entire first screen do not have this as well anywhere.
Jim B.
·
·
I'm wondering if it's because that text is in other spans inside the trace, not just the entry point. What happens if you do the search on the spans tab, not trace?

Why Is Searching for Traces So Difficult and Complicated? | Arize AI Community