# Vercel Tracing is generally available with longer retention and Next.js 16.5 auto-trace

Canonical: https://theagenticweekly.com/news/vercel-tracing-ga · Evidence: Reported · First seen: 2026-11-06 18:08 UTC · Source published: 2026-11-06 17:00 UTC · Brief published: 2026-11-07 07:16 UTC · Updated: 2026-11-07 07:16 UTC · Author: Agentic Weekly

> Vercel announced on November 6, 2026 that "Vercel Tracing is now generally available on all plans." Retention is "Hobby now keeps traces for 3 days," "Pro for 14 days," and "Enterprise for 14 days"; new Next.js 16.5 projects get tracing after the first successful build, with dashboard and vercel traces CLI KQL search.

## What changed

- GA: Vercel Tracing is generally available on all plans; pricing is unchanged from the beta per the changelog.
- Retention: Hobby keeps traces for 3 days (was 1 hour), Pro for 14 days (was 1 day), and Enterprise for 14 days (was 3 days).
- Dashboard: a Traces page lists spans and traces with Kibana Query Language (KQL) search and Live mode, beyond the beta's per-request Logs entry point.
- CLI: vercel traces search --query, vercel traces inspect and vercel traces config share the same KQL as the dashboard.
- Next.js 16.5: new projects on Vercel with at least one Node.js function get tracing turned on after the first successful build (100% sampling rule, build-time instrumentation); remove sampling rules to opt out.

## In the source's words

> "Vercel Tracing is now generally available on all plans."
> (Vercel Changelog, https://vercel.com/changelog/vercel-tracing-is-now-generally-available)

> "Hobby now keeps traces for 3 days instead of 1 hour, Pro for 14 days instead of 1 day, and Enterprise for 14 days instead of 3 days."
> (Vercel Changelog (Longer retention), https://vercel.com/changelog/vercel-tracing-is-now-generally-available)

> "Starting with Next.js 16.5, new projects created on Vercel that include at least one Node.js function get tracing turned on after their first successful build."
> (Vercel Changelog (Automatic tracing), https://vercel.com/changelog/vercel-tracing-is-now-generally-available)

## What we have not verified

- We did not enable Tracing on a Vercel project or run vercel traces CLI queries ourselves.
- Pricing line items beyond "unchanged from the beta" were not re-checked on the pricing page.
- Auto-instrumentation behaviour on an existing Next.js 16.5 app was not tested.

## Timeline

- Source published: 2026-11-06 17:00 UTC
- First seen by our watcher: 2026-11-06 18:08 UTC (via Vercel blog)
- Brief published: 2026-11-07 07:16 UTC

## Sources

- [Vercel Changelog: Vercel Tracing is now generally available](https://vercel.com/changelog/vercel-tracing-is-now-generally-available) (primary source) (fetched 2026-11-07)

## Related

- [All news briefs](https://theagenticweekly.com/news)
- [This week's releases](https://theagenticweekly.com/this-week)
- [New AI models this week](https://theagenticweekly.com/models/this-week)

## How to cite

Agentic Weekly, "Vercel Tracing is generally available with longer retention and Next.js 16.5 auto-trace", published 2026-11-07 07:16 UTC, https://theagenticweekly.com/news/vercel-tracing-ga