diff --git a/backend/pom.xml b/backend/pom.xml
index 9b558351..7ac0a6a5 100644
--- a/backend/pom.xml
+++ b/backend/pom.xml
@@ -197,6 +197,33 @@
 			<artifactId>jsoup</artifactId>
 			<version>1.18.1</version>
 		</dependency>
+
+		<!-- Observability: Prometheus metrics scrape endpoint (version managed by Spring Boot BOM) -->
+		<dependency>
+			<groupId>io.micrometer</groupId>
+			<artifactId>micrometer-registry-prometheus</artifactId>
+		</dependency>
+
+		<!-- Observability: Micrometer → OpenTelemetry tracing bridge (version managed by Spring Boot BOM) -->
+		<dependency>
+			<groupId>io.micrometer</groupId>
+			<artifactId>micrometer-tracing-bridge-otel</artifactId>
+		</dependency>
+
+		<!-- Observability: OTel Spring Boot auto-instrumentation — NOT in Spring Boot BOM, pinned explicitly -->
+		<dependency>
+			<groupId>io.opentelemetry.instrumentation</groupId>
+			<artifactId>opentelemetry-spring-boot-starter</artifactId>
+			<version>2.27.0</version>
+			<exclusions>
+				<!-- Excludes AzureAppServiceResourceProvider which references ServiceAttributes.SERVICE_INSTANCE_ID
+				     that does not exist in the semconv version pulled by this project. -->
+				<exclusion>
+					<groupId>io.opentelemetry.contrib</groupId>
+					<artifactId>opentelemetry-azure-resources</artifactId>
+				</exclusion>
+			</exclusions>
+		</dependency>
 	</dependencies>
 
 
diff --git a/backend/src/main/resources/application.yaml b/backend/src/main/resources/application.yaml
index 179ed09e..6198f3d9 100644
--- a/backend/src/main/resources/application.yaml
+++ b/backend/src/main/resources/application.yaml
@@ -45,9 +45,34 @@ server:
   forward-headers-strategy: native
 
 management:
+  server:
+    # Management port is separate from the app port so that:
+    # (a) Caddy never proxies /actuator/* (it only routes :8080 → the app port)
+    # (b) Prometheus scrapes backend:8081 directly inside archiv-net, not via Caddy
+    # (c) Spring Security's session-authenticated filter chain on :8080 never sees actuator requests
+    port: 8081
+  endpoints:
+    web:
+      exposure:
+        include: health,info,prometheus,metrics
+  endpoint:
+    prometheus:
+      enabled: true
   health:
     mail:
       enabled: false
+  tracing:
+    sampling:
+      probability: 1.0   # 100% in dev; override via MANAGEMENT_TRACING_SAMPLING_PROBABILITY in prod compose
+
+# OpenTelemetry trace export — failures are non-fatal (app starts cleanly without Tempo running)
+# The default http://localhost:4317 ensures CI compatibility when no observability stack is present.
+otel:
+  service:
+    name: familienarchiv-backend
+  exporter:
+    otlp:
+      endpoint: ${OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT:http://localhost:4317}
 
 springdoc:
   api-docs:
diff --git a/backend/src/test/resources/application-test.yaml b/backend/src/test/resources/application-test.yaml
index 6a8cbad3..06a4ada1 100644
--- a/backend/src/test/resources/application-test.yaml
+++ b/backend/src/test/resources/application-test.yaml
@@ -13,3 +13,16 @@ spring:
     password: test
   mail:
     host: localhost
+
+# Disable OTel SDK entirely in tests — prevents auto-configuration from loading resource providers
+# (e.g. AzureAppServiceResourceProvider) that fail against the semconv version used here.
+otel:
+  sdk:
+    disabled: true
+
+# Disable trace export in tests — prevents OTLP connection attempts when no Tempo is running.
+# Sampling probability 0.0 means no spans are created, so no export is attempted.
+management:
+  tracing:
+    sampling:
+      probability: 0.0
diff --git a/docker-compose.yml b/docker-compose.yml
index 952e3074..3e42c981 100644
--- a/docker-compose.yml
+++ b/docker-compose.yml
@@ -147,8 +147,18 @@ services:
       SPRING_MAIL_PROPERTIES_MAIL_SMTP_STARTTLS_ENABLE: ${MAIL_STARTTLS_ENABLE:-false}
       APP_OCR_BASE_URL: http://ocr-service:8000
       APP_OCR_TRAINING_TOKEN: "${OCR_TRAINING_TOKEN:-}"
+      # Observability: send traces to Tempo inside archiv-net (OTLP gRPC port 4317)
+      # Tempo is defined in docker-compose.observability.yml (future issue).
+      # OTLP failures are non-fatal — backend starts cleanly without the observability stack.
+      OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT: http://tempo:4317
+      # 10% sampling in this compose (dev + staging) — override locally to 1.0 if needed
+      MANAGEMENT_TRACING_SAMPLING_PROBABILITY: "0.1"
     ports:
       - "${PORT_BACKEND}:8080"
+      # Management port — Prometheus scrapes /actuator/prometheus from inside archiv-net.
+      # Not exposed to the host; Docker service-name DNS (backend:8081) is sufficient.
+    expose:
+      - "8081"
     networks:
       - archiv-net
     healthcheck:
diff --git a/docs/DEPLOYMENT.md b/docs/DEPLOYMENT.md
index 8b96b3fd..c3fb21fe 100644
--- a/docs/DEPLOYMENT.md
+++ b/docs/DEPLOYMENT.md
@@ -107,6 +107,8 @@ All vars are set in `.env` at the repo root (copy from `.env.example`). The back
 | `MAIL_SMTP_AUTH` | SMTP auth enabled | `false` (dev) | YES (prod) | — |
 | `MAIL_STARTTLS_ENABLE` | STARTTLS enabled | `false` (dev) | YES (prod) | — |
 | `SPRING_PROFILES_ACTIVE` | Spring profile | `dev,e2e` (compose) | YES | — |
+| `OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT` | OTLP gRPC endpoint for distributed traces (Tempo). Set to `http://tempo:4317` via compose. | `http://localhost:4317` | — | — |
+| `MANAGEMENT_TRACING_SAMPLING_PROBABILITY` | Micrometer tracing sample rate; overridden to `0.0` in test profile. | `0.1` (compose) / `1.0` (dev) | — | — |
 
 ### PostgreSQL container