Add Sleuth to your classpath:

Maven

<dependencyManagement>
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.cloud</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-cloud-dependencies</artifactId>
            <version>${release.train.version}</version>
            <type>pom</type>
            <scope>import</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
</dependencyManagement>
<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.cloud</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-cloud-starter-sleuth</artifactId>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

Gradle

buildscript {
    dependencies {
        classpath "io.spring.gradle:dependency-management-plugin:0.5.2.RELEASE"
    }
}

apply plugin: "io.spring.dependency-management"

dependencyManagement {
     imports {
          mavenBom "org.springframework.cloud:spring-cloud-dependencies:${releaseTrainVersion}"
     }
}
dependencies {
    compile 'org.springframework.cloud:spring-cloud-starter-sleuth'
}

As long as Spring Cloud Sleuth is on the classpath any Spring Boot application will generate trace data:

@SpringBootApplication
@RestController
public class Application {

  private static Logger log = LoggerFactory.getLogger(DemoController.class);

  @RequestMapping("/")
  public String home() {
    log.info("Handling home");
    return "Hello World";
  }

  public static void main(String[] args) {
    SpringApplication.run(Application.class, args);
  }

}

Run this app and then hit the home page. You will see traceId and spanId populated in the logs. If this app calls out to another one (e.g. with RestTemplate) it will send the trace data in headers and if the receiver is another Sleuth app you will see the trace continue there.

• Instead of logging the request in the handler explicitly, you could set logging.level.org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet=DEBUG

• Sleuth defaults to a rate limited sampler. That means that it will sample up to 1000 transactions per second.

• Set spring.application.name=bar (for instance) to see the service name as well as the trace and span ids.