---
title: Sampling
weight: 80
---

Sampling is a process that restricts the amount of traces that are generated by
a system. The exact sampler you should use depends on your specific needs, but
in general you should make a decision at the start of a trace, and allow the
sampling decision to propagate to other services.

A sampler needs to be set on the tracer provider when its configured, as
follows:

```go
provider := sdktrace.NewTracerProvider(
    sdktrace.WithSampler(sdktrace.AlwaysSample()),
)
```

`AlwaysSample` and `NeverSample` are fairly self-explanatory. Always means that
every trace will be sampled, the converse holds as true for Never. When you're
getting started, or in a development environment, you'll almost always want to
use `AlwaysSample`.

Other samplers include:

- `TraceIDRatioBased`, which will sample a fraction of traces, based on the
  fraction given to the sampler. Thus, if you set this to .5, half of traces
  will be sampled.
- `ParentBased`, which behaves differently based on the incoming sampling
  decision. In general, this will sample spans that have parents that were
  sampled, and will not sample spans whose parents were _not_ sampled.

When you're in production, you should consider using the `TraceIDRatioBased`
sampler with the `ParentBased` sampler.