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Jane Street avatar

magic-trace

Linux process tracer that records every function call via Intel PT

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What it is

A command-line tracer that uses Intel Processor Trace to continuously record every branch a running process takes into a circular buffer, then saves a snapshot on Ctrl+C or when a chosen function is called. The resulting trace opens in a web viewer as a zoomable timeline of call stacks with roughly 40ns resolution and low overhead, with no changes to the application. Systems and performance engineers use it to find slow requests in production, see what code actually did before a crash, and inspect behavior that sampling profilers like perf miss. It runs on Linux with Intel Skylake or newer CPUs.

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Facts

Stars
6,302 GitHub stars.
6,302

Forks
212
Commits
344
Contributors
23
Language
OCaml
License
MIT
Last commit
May 29, 2026
On GitHub since
January 2022
First release
March 2022
Platforms
web, Linux, CLI
Self-hostable
No
Alternative to
Intel VTune
Tags
  • system-monitor
  • debugging
  • data-visualization

Last synced from GitHub on Oct 20, 2026

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What people are saying

Updated Oct 21, 2026
  • Hacker NewsMagic-trace – High-resolution traces of what a process is doingApr 22, 2022 · 831 points · 140 comments (opens Hacker News in a new tab)
  • Bluesky“Your periodic reminder to try out magic-trace. It's the best performance analysis tool you've never heard of. Powered by Intel's amazing Processor Trace, and…”Nov 16, 2024 · 37 likes · 2 replies (opens Bluesky in a new tab)
  • Bluesky“Have you seen ?”Jun 2, 2026 · 2 likes · 1 reply (opens Bluesky in a new tab)
  • Bluesky“It seems it should be possible to get better, precisely connected counts. My first thought was to look at Intel PT, but apparently PT doesn't actually include…”May 19, 2025 · 1 like · 1 reply (opens Bluesky in a new tab)
  • Bluesky“"janestreet/magic-trace: magic-trace collects and displays high-resolution traces of what a process is doing"”Nov 15, 2024 · 1 like · 0 replies (opens Bluesky in a new tab)