Distributed tracing assumes HTTP headers carry context. Kubernetes-native CI/CD has no requests - causality flows through resource manifests and reconciliation loops across controllers, clusters, and time gaps.

This talk introduces Controller-Native Trace Propagation: controllers inject W3C trace context onto Kubernetes resources they create, and downstream runtimes graft execution spans under it. One trace per delivery encodes stage-level causality across the Continuous Delivery lifecycle - build, test, and release - no custom correlation needed.

Using a Tekton-based platform, I show how a Snapshot resource anchors trace continuity: the triggering component's context propagates through integration and release, while timestamp-derived spans decompose each stage into wait vs. execution time.

The pattern generalizes to any controller creating resources with trace parent adoption. Attendees leave with a named, reusable propagation model and practical delivery latency techniques.