OpenTelemetry is an open-source framework that standardizes the collection and export of telemetry data such as traces, metrics, and logs, providing essential end-to-end visibility for Node.js applications in production. This tutorial guides users through implementing OpenTelemetry tracing in Node.js and Express applications to track the lifecycle of requests across APIs and background workflows. Key components include traces, which represent requests' lifecycles, and spans, which indicate single operations within traces. The tutorial emphasizes setting up OpenTelemetry in a Node.js environment with necessary packages and configuring a tracing setup that utilizes the OLTP exporter to visualize traces in Jaeger. It also includes integrating Inngest for managing background workflows, allowing developers to capture workflow steps as traces. The guide provides steps to create an Express API with tracing capabilities, visualize spans using Jaeger, and implement custom spans using the OpenTelemetry Node.js client. By following these steps, developers can enhance observability, debug efficiently, and optimize system performance, especially when dealing with complex workflows.