Provided are techniques for the tracing of computer processes and, more specifically, to techniques that enable a work unit to be traced across multiple processing components. A data structure is created and associated with a work unit. The first time a unit of work is processed a tracing context is retrieved form a pool and associated with the data structure. As the unit of work is passed from component to component, the data structure is passed so that each component has access and is able to augment the same tracing context associated with the unit of work.