diff --git a/.github/tracing/README.md b/.github/tracing/README.md
index feba31feb65..04f0216e25f 100644
--- a/.github/tracing/README.md
+++ b/.github/tracing/README.md
@@ -48,4 +48,55 @@ This folder contains the following config files:
 
 These config files are for an OTEL collector, grafana Tempo, and a grafana UI instance to run as containers on the same network.
 `otel-collector-dev.yaml` is the configuration for dev (i.e. your local machine) environments, and forwards traces from the otel collector to the grafana tempo instance on the same network. 
-`otel-collector-ci.yaml` is the configuration for the CI runs, and exports the trace data to the artifact from the github run. 
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+`otel-collector-ci.yaml` is the configuration for the CI runs, and exports the trace data to the artifact from the github run.
+
+## Adding Traces to Plugins and to core
+
+Adding traces requires identifying an observability gap in a related group of code executions or a critical path in your application. This is intuitive for the developer:
+
+- "What's the flow of component interaction in this distributed system?"
+- "What's the behavior of the JobProcessorOne component when jobs with [x, y, z] attributes are processed?"
+- "Is this critical path workflow behaving the way we expect?"
+
+The developer will measure a flow of execution from end to end in one trace. Each logically separate measure of this flow is called a span. Spans have either one or no parent span and multiple children span. The relationship between parent and child spans in agreggate will form a directed acyclic graph. The trace begins at the root of this graph.
+
+The most trivial application of a span is measuring top level performance in one critical path. There is much more you can do, including creating human readable and timestamped events within a span (useful for monitoring concurrent access to resources), recording errors, linking parent and children spans through large parts of an application, and even extending a span beyond a single process.
+
+Spans are created by `tracers` and passed through go applications by `Context`s. A tracer must be initialized first. Both core and plugin developers will initialize a tracer from the globally registered trace provider:
+
+```
+tracer := otel.GetTracerProvider().Tracer("example.com/foo")
+```
+
+The globally registered tracer provider is available for plugins after they are initialized, and available in core after configuration is processed (`initGlobals`).
+
+Add spans by:
+```
+  func interestingFunc() {
+    // Assuming there is an appropriate parentContext
+	ctx, span := tracer.Start(parentContext, "hello-span")
+	defer span.End()
+
+	// do some work to track with hello-span
+  }
+```
+As implied by the example, `span` is a child of its parent span captured by `parentContext`.
+
+
+Note that in certain situations, there are 3rd party libraries that will setup spans. For instance:
+
+```
+import (
+	"github.com/gin-gonic/gin"
+	"go.opentelemetry.io/contrib/instrumentation/github.com/gin-gonic/gin/otelgin"
+)
+
+router := gin.Default()
+router.Use(otelgin.Middleware("service-name"))
+```
+
+The developer aligns with best practices when they:
+- Start with critical paths
+- Measure paths from end to end (Context is wired all the way through)
+- Emphasize broadness of measurement over depth
+- Use automatic instrumentation if possible
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