diff --git a/api.go b/api.go
index e3f90852f..d3fe62322 100644
--- a/api.go
+++ b/api.go
@@ -21,6 +21,7 @@ import (
 	"fmt"
 	"reflect"
 	"strconv"
+	"strings"
 	"time"
 
 	"github.com/sourcegraph/zoekt/query"
@@ -945,8 +946,71 @@ type SearchOptions struct {
 	SpanContext map[string]string
 }
 
+// String returns a succinct representation of the options. This is meant for
+// human consumption in logs and traces.
+//
+// Note: some tracing systems have limits on length of values, so we take care
+// to try and make this small, and include the important information near the
+// front incase of truncation.
 func (s *SearchOptions) String() string {
-	return fmt.Sprintf("%#v", s)
+	var b strings.Builder
+
+	add := func(name, value string) {
+		b.WriteString(name)
+		b.WriteByte('=')
+		b.WriteString(value)
+		b.WriteByte(' ')
+	}
+	addInt := func(name string, value int) {
+		if value != 0 {
+			add(name, strconv.Itoa(value))
+		}
+	}
+	addDuration := func(name string, value time.Duration) {
+		if value != 0 {
+			add(name, value.String())
+		}
+	}
+	addBool := func(name string, value bool) {
+		if !value {
+			return
+		}
+		b.WriteString(name)
+		b.WriteByte(' ')
+	}
+
+	b.WriteString("zoekt.SearchOptions{ ")
+
+	addInt("ShardMaxMatchCount", s.ShardMaxMatchCount)
+	addInt("TotalMaxMatchCount", s.TotalMaxMatchCount)
+	addInt("ShardRepoMaxMatchCount", s.ShardRepoMaxMatchCount)
+	addInt("ShardMaxImportantMatch", s.ShardMaxImportantMatch)
+	addInt("TotalMaxImportantMatch", s.TotalMaxImportantMatch)
+	addInt("MaxDocDisplayCount", s.MaxDocDisplayCount)
+	addInt("MaxMatchDisplayCount", s.MaxMatchDisplayCount)
+	addInt("NumContextLines", s.NumContextLines)
+
+	addDuration("MaxWallTime", s.MaxWallTime)
+	addDuration("FlushWallTime", s.FlushWallTime)
+
+	if s.DocumentRanksWeight > 0 {
+		add("DocumentRanksWeight", strconv.FormatFloat(s.DocumentRanksWeight, 'g', -1, 64))
+	}
+
+	addBool("EstimateDocCount", s.EstimateDocCount)
+	addBool("Whole", s.Whole)
+	addBool("ChunkMatches", s.ChunkMatches)
+	addBool("UseDocumentRanks", s.UseDocumentRanks)
+	addBool("UseKeywordScoring", s.UseKeywordScoring)
+	addBool("Trace", s.Trace)
+	addBool("DebugScore", s.DebugScore)
+
+	for k, v := range s.SpanContext {
+		add("SpanContext."+k, strconv.Quote(v))
+	}
+
+	b.WriteByte('}')
+	return b.String()
 }
 
 // Sender is the interface that wraps the basic Send method.
diff --git a/api_test.go b/api_test.go
index fe860d58c..ab13f145d 100644
--- a/api_test.go
+++ b/api_test.go
@@ -21,11 +21,13 @@ import (
 	"strings"
 	"testing"
 	"time"
+
+	"github.com/grafana/regexp"
 )
 
 /*
-BenchmarkMinimalRepoListEncodings/slice-8         	    570	  2145665 ns/op	   753790 bytes	   3981 B/op	      0 allocs/op
-BenchmarkMinimalRepoListEncodings/map-8           	    360	  3337522 ns/op	   740778 bytes	 377777 B/op	  13002 allocs/op
+BenchmarkMinimalRepoListEncodings/slice-8								570		2145665 ns/op		 753790 bytes		 3981 B/op				0 allocs/op
+BenchmarkMinimalRepoListEncodings/map-8									360		3337522 ns/op		 740778 bytes	 377777 B/op		13002 allocs/op
 */
 func BenchmarkMinimalRepoListEncodings(b *testing.B) {
 	size := uint32(13000) // 2021-06-24 rough estimate of number of repos on a replica.
@@ -165,3 +167,73 @@ tool fieldalignment then update this test.`, c.v, c.size, got)
 		}
 	}
 }
+
+func TestSearchOptions_String(t *testing.T) {
+	// To make sure we don't forget to update the string implementation we use
+	// reflection to generate a SearchOptions with every field being non
+	// default. We then check that the field name is present in the output.
+	opts := SearchOptions{}
+	var fieldNames []string
+	rv := reflect.ValueOf(&opts).Elem()
+	for i := 0; i < rv.NumField(); i++ {
+		f := rv.Field(i)
+		name := rv.Type().Field(i).Name
+		fieldNames = append(fieldNames, name)
+		switch f.Kind() {
+		case reflect.Bool:
+			f.SetBool(true)
+		case reflect.Int:
+			f.SetInt(1)
+		case reflect.Int64:
+			f.SetInt(1)
+		case reflect.Float64:
+			f.SetFloat(1)
+		case reflect.Map:
+			// Only map is SpanContext
+			f.Set(reflect.ValueOf(map[string]string{"key": "value"}))
+		default:
+			t.Fatalf("add support for %s field (%s)", f.Kind(), name)
+		}
+	}
+
+	s := opts.String()
+	for _, name := range fieldNames {
+		found, err := regexp.MatchString("\\b"+regexp.QuoteMeta(name)+"\\b", s)
+		if err != nil {
+			t.Fatal(err)
+		}
+		if !found {
+			t.Errorf("could not find field %q in string output of SearchOptions:\n%s", name, s)
+		}
+	}
+
+	webDefaults := SearchOptions{
+		MaxWallTime: 10 * time.Second,
+	}
+	webDefaults.SetDefaults()
+
+	// Now we hand craft a few corner and common cases
+	cases := []struct {
+		Opts SearchOptions
+		Want string
+	}{{
+		// Empty
+		Opts: SearchOptions{},
+		Want: "zoekt.SearchOptions{ }",
+	}, {
+		// healthz options
+		Opts: SearchOptions{ShardMaxMatchCount: 1, TotalMaxMatchCount: 1, MaxDocDisplayCount: 1},
+		Want: "zoekt.SearchOptions{ ShardMaxMatchCount=1 TotalMaxMatchCount=1 MaxDocDisplayCount=1 }",
+	}, {
+		// zoekt-webserver defaults
+		Opts: webDefaults,
+		Want: "zoekt.SearchOptions{ ShardMaxMatchCount=100000 TotalMaxMatchCount=1000000 MaxWallTime=10s }",
+	}}
+
+	for _, tc := range cases {
+		got := tc.Opts.String()
+		if got != tc.Want {
+			t.Errorf("unexpected String for %#v:\ngot:  %s\nwant: %s", tc.Opts, got, tc.Want)
+		}
+	}
+}