diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 019dac357de..3f62f57823b 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -49,6 +49,7 @@ All notable changes to Sourcegraph are documented in this file.
   been marked as deprecated and will be removed in a future release [#52566](https://github.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph/pull/52566)
 - Update minimum supported Redis version to 6.2 [#52248](https://github.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph/pull/52248)
 - The batch spec properties [`transformChanges`](https://docs.sourcegraph.com/batch_changes/references/batch_spec_yaml_reference#transformchanges) and [`workspaces`](https://docs.sourcegraph.com/batch_changes/references/batch_spec_yaml_reference#workspaces) are now generally available.
+- If a Sourcegraph request is traced, its trace ID and span ID are now set to the `X-Trace` and `X-Trace-Span` response headers respectively. The trace URL (if a template is configured in `observability.tracing.urlTemplate`) is now set to `X-Trace-URL` - previously, the URL was set to `X-Trace`. [#53259](https://github.com/sourcegraph/sourcegraph/pull/53259)
 
 ### Fixed
 
diff --git a/doc/admin/observability/tracing.md b/doc/admin/observability/tracing.md
index 6203fe212e3..bc21243ff33 100644
--- a/doc/admin/observability/tracing.md
+++ b/doc/admin/observability/tracing.md
@@ -47,7 +47,7 @@ Note that getting a trace URL requires `urlTemplate` to be configured.
 ### Trace a GraphQL request
 
 To receive a traceID on a GraphQL request, include the header `X-Sourcegraph-Should-Trace: true` with the request.
-The response headers of the response will now include an `x-trace` entry, which will have a URL the [exported trace](#tracing-backends).
+The response headers of the response will now include an `x-trace-url` entry, which will have a URL the [exported trace](#tracing-backends).
 
 Note that getting a trace URL requires `urlTemplate` to be configured.
 
diff --git a/internal/instrumentation/http.go b/internal/instrumentation/http.go
index 0da1ca0c8d2..c69310b5b2e 100644
--- a/internal/instrumentation/http.go
+++ b/internal/instrumentation/http.go
@@ -52,11 +52,32 @@ var defaultOTELHTTPOptions = []otelhttp.Option{
 //     using the globally configured propagator.
 //
 // The provided operation name is used to add details to spans.
-func HTTPMiddleware(operation string, h http.Handler, opts ...otelhttp.Option) http.Handler {
-	instrumentedHandler := otelhttp.NewHandler(h, operation,
+func HTTPMiddleware(operation string, next http.Handler, opts ...otelhttp.Option) http.Handler {
+	afterInstrumentedHandler := http.HandlerFunc(func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
+		// Set X-Trace after otelhttp's handler which starts the trace. The
+		// top-level trace should be an OTEL trace, so we use otel/trace to
+		// extract it. Then, we add it to the header before next writes the
+		// header back to client.
+		span := trace.SpanContextFromContext(r.Context())
+		if span.IsValid() {
+			// We only set the trace ID here. The trace URL is set to
+			// X-Trace-URL by httptrace.HTTPMiddleware that does some more
+			// elaborate handling. In particular, we don't want to introduce
+			// a conf.Get() dependency here to build the trace URL, since we
+			// want this to be fairly bare-bones for use in standalone services
+			// like Cody Gateway.
+			w.Header().Set("X-Trace", span.TraceID().String())
+			w.Header().Set("X-Trace-Span", span.SpanID().String())
+		}
+
+		next.ServeHTTP(w, r)
+	})
+
+	instrumentedHandler := otelhttp.NewHandler(afterInstrumentedHandler, operation,
 		append(defaultOTELHTTPOptions, opts...)...)
 
 	return http.HandlerFunc(func(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
+		// Set up trace policy before instrumented handler
 		var shouldTrace bool
 		switch policy.GetTracePolicy() {
 		case policy.TraceSelective:
diff --git a/internal/trace/httptrace.go b/internal/trace/httptrace.go
index bc245215f65..c88d335ce28 100644
--- a/internal/trace/httptrace.go
+++ b/internal/trace/httptrace.go
@@ -122,8 +122,11 @@ func HTTPMiddleware(l log.Logger, next http.Handler, siteConfig conftypes.SiteCo
 		trace := Context(ctx)
 		var traceURL string
 		if trace.TraceID != "" {
+			// We set X-Trace-URL to a configured URL template for traces.
+			// X-Trace for the trace ID is set in instrumentation.HTTPMiddleware,
+			// which is a more bare-bones OpenTelemetry handler.
 			traceURL = URL(trace.TraceID, siteConfig)
-			rw.Header().Set("X-Trace", traceURL)
+			rw.Header().Set("X-Trace-URL", traceURL)
 			logger = logger.WithTrace(trace)
 		}