Confident Trace

OpenTelemetry-first tracing for AI workloads. No Confident wire format, local agent, replacement provider clients, or dependency on DeepEval.

from confident_trace import init
from openai import OpenAI

init()  # reads CONFIDENT_API_KEY and instruments installed supported SDKs
client = OpenAI()

response = client.responses.create(model="gpt-4.1-mini", input="Hello")

That call automatically emits and exports an OTel span. No decorator or manual trace submission is required. Calls inherit the current OTel context, so calls inside an already-instrumented agent/request join its trace. Without a parent, a call starts its own trace. Existing framework OTel spans are exported too.

@span is optional: use it to add a custom step or instrument an application entry point that does not already emit OTel spans. The current provider instrumentors capture LLM calls and requested tools; arbitrary Python tool execution needs a framework's OTel instrumentation or a decorator. init() cannot infer request boundaries or tool execution in otherwise uninstrumented code.

Spans sharing an OTel trace ID make up a trace. Setting confident.trace.thread_id associates that trace with a conversation, where it represents a turn. The thread ID does not change parentage or merge traces. The optional turn() scope starts a fresh trace for each turn. Explicit thread IDs also populate the standard gen_ai.conversation.id on the entry and subsequent package spans. See examples/conversation.py for adding conversation metadata to an optional custom entry point.

Development install: pip install -e './python[test]' from the repository root. Version 0.1.0 is the initial release; the API may change before 1.0.0. See the release compatibility matrix for coverage.

What is supported?

• Automatically instrumented SDK calls: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google GenAI, and AWS Bedrock Runtime (Boto3). We wrap their supported Python methods and emit OTel spans ourselves.
• In-house framework integration: LangChain and LangGraph; full callback hierarchy, GenAI model/tool spans, and standard OTel nesting inside nodes and tools. CrewAI, LlamaIndex, Agno and smolagents capture execution structure with provider-owned inference spans; see framework ownership.
• Native framework integration: Pydantic AI, Strands, Google ADK, Microsoft Agent Framework, AgentCore, OpenAI Agents (requires the tracing bridge extra), and Claude Agent SDK (native child-process export). See setup and native limitations.
• Existing OTel spans: we export spans an SDK/framework or external instrumentor already emits through the shared provider. Framework instrumentation must already be enabled; backend GenAI interpretation depends on its conventions.
• Custom code: use the optional @span decorator.

See the support mechanisms and version matrix for exact methods, who emits spans, automatic setup, and tested versus unverified coverage. Existing OTel transport support is not a claim that all agent frameworks are automatically instrumented or fully mapped.

Configuration

init() reads CONFIDENT_API_KEY, CONFIDENT_OTEL_ENDPOINT, OTEL_SDK_DISABLED, OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES, and standard OTel exporter settings. Unspecified exporter options are delegated to OTel, including TLS certificates/client keys, compression, headers, and timeouts.

Explicit arguments override environment settings. CONFIDENT_OTEL_ENDPOINT is the full traces endpoint. Standard OTel endpoint variables are ignored. Without an endpoint setting, HTTP export defaults to https://otel.confident-ai.com/v1/traces. OTEL_SDK_DISABLED=true always disables package tracing at initialization. Trace-specific exporter settings take precedence over generic settings. An explicit endpoint is the complete traces endpoint, including /v1/traces for HTTP export. Timeouts passed to init are seconds; flush and shutdown budgets are milliseconds. Explicit headers override environment/auth headers.

export CONFIDENT_API_KEY=...
export OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES='service.name=my-agent,deployment.environment.name=staging'
export CONFIDENT_OTEL_ENDPOINT=http://localhost:4318/v1/traces
# Or a gRPC Collector:
export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL=grpc
export CONFIDENT_OTEL_ENDPOINT=http://localhost:4317
# Disable in CI:
export OTEL_SDK_DISABLED=true

A supplied API key is forwarded to the configured endpoint. When using a Collector that does not require it, omit the variable or pass api_key="". The Confident default endpoint supports HTTP/protobuf. gRPC requires a custom endpoint. Authentication and project selection are handled by the backend.

init(tracer_provider=provider) adds only a standard batch export pipeline to an existing SDK provider. It does not change its resources, sampler, propagator, or other processors. Resource arguments apply only when creating a provider. Without an explicit provider, an existing global provider is reused. Standard OTel W3C propagation remains available; the package does not instrument HTTP frameworks or install a different propagator.

Initialization is idempotent; call shutdown() before reconfiguring. Initialization failure returns an inactive runtime and logs a content-free warning. flush() reports whether the queue drained, not whether the remote backend accepted data. shutdown(timeout_millis=5000) returns false if exporter cleanup is still running; cleanup continues in a daemon thread. It does not shut down an application-owned provider or its other processors. Finish/close active streams before shutdown.

Content and spans

@span, @span(name="step"), and @span(type="tool") preserve function return values and exceptions. with span("step") as s: yields the real OTel span. update_trace() updates the entry span, falling back to the current OTel span.

Content is enabled by default. init(capture_content=False) disables content capture in this package; third-party instrumentors retain their own policies. redact(value) runs before serialization; if it raises, the value is omitted. max_content_bytes defaults to 16 KiB per content attribute. Serialization walks only built-in containers, with depth/node limits; arbitrary objects become [unsupported]. Oversized custom values become a JSON truncation marker. Message arrays retain a structurally valid prefix, or are omitted if redaction produces an invalid shape. Streaming capture retains a bounded prefix and marks confident.span.content_truncated. Exception types are recorded without exception messages or stack traces.

Generator decorators start spans on first iteration, detach context between iterations, and end on exhaustion, close, error, or garbage collection. They forward send/throw/asend/athrow. Generator yields are not accumulated; a synchronous generator's final return value is captured. Explicitly close abandoned generators. Providers capture bounded streaming output separately.

Use instrumentations=() when another instrumentor already covers the provider. Existing wrapt wrappers are not stacked. Enabled native integrations add confident.span.integration to spans from their exact instrumentation scope. Other attributes, events, and schema URLs retain their native conventions.

See the Python compatibility matrix and shared wire contract for exact supported surfaces, convention versions, release requirements, and portable receiver fixtures. Backend mapping is developed and validated separately.

License

Licensed under the Apache License 2.0. The license is included in both the wheel and source distribution. Bundled OpenTelemetry material retains its third-party attribution.

Bedrock examples: Converse, streaming, and asyncio thread offload. Boto3 uses its normal AWS credential chain. Native async AWS clients are not instrumented.

For implementation layout and adding integrations, see the architecture guide.

Native integrations: install pip install confident-trace in your existing Google ADK or Microsoft Agent Framework application, then call init() on the shared global OTel provider. Supported installed SDKs are detected automatically; manage your provider and framework dependencies in your application.

AgentCore additionally needs OTel ASGI instrumentation: install pip install 'confident-trace[agentcore]'. This extra installs the tracing middleware only; your application supplies bedrock-agentcore. Extras add tracing dependencies, rather than enabling integrations.

See integration setup and boundaries and examples. Tested versions are documented; cloud deployment and backend mapping are separate. Test extras are for development and CI.

SDK diagnostics

To troubleshoot missing telemetry, enable the SDK's diagnostic logger through Python logging:

import logging

logging.basicConfig(level=logging.WARNING)
logging.getLogger("confident_trace.diagnostics").setLevel(logging.DEBUG)

Failures caught by the shared fail-open helper then produce messages such as Telemetry operation integrations.openai.extraction.response failed (TypeError). This is SDK troubleshooting output, not a separate telemetry exporter. Existing application logging handlers and filters determine where the messages go.

Diagnostics are silent unless DEBUG is enabled for this logger (directly or via its parent). They include only package code locations and exception type names; arguments, return values, exception messages, and tracebacks are omitted. External callables use the generic label telemetry. Output is limited to 10 messages per 60-second window per process across all operations; the last message announces suppression. Enabling diagnostics does not change return values or retry calls. Logging failures are swallowed and forked children get a fresh limiter. This covers the shared helper, not every upstream or independently caught failure.

For OpenAI Agents framework tracing, install confident-trace[openai-agents] in addition to your existing openai-agents package. This extra adds the OpenInference tracing bridge. Claude Agent SDK needs no extra; init() configures its default subprocess's native OTLP export. See setup and boundaries.

LangChain and LangGraph

Install the frameworks and model integrations your application uses, then call init(). No tracing extra or OpenInference dependency is required. Both frameworks share one owned callback bridge; instrumentations=("langgraph",) also enables it.

from confident_trace import init, span

init()
with span("request"):
    result = graph.invoke(state, {"configurable": {"thread_id": "conversation-42"}})

Graph nodes, intermediate runnables, models, tools, and retrievers retain their callback hierarchy. A model's requested tool calls are captured in its output; subsequent tool executions follow their framework parent, normally alongside the model under the agent/node. Conversation IDs associate separate traces; checkpoint resume starts a new invocation.

See execution and concurrency details and the offline LangGraph example.

CrewAI is automatically instrumented when installed. See CrewAI setup and tracing ownership.

LlamaIndex, Agno, and smolagents are automatically instrumented when installed. See setup, execution context and model span ownership.

Integration labels

confident_trace.Integration is the shared string enum of Cloud UI labels. Package-owned integrations stamp confident.span.integration at span creation; enabled native integrations stamp spans on the shared provider. Provider calls keep their own SDK label when nested inside framework spans. LangGraph uses Integration.LANGCHAIN, matching its shared callback bridge and Cloud UI.

Existing UI labels are retained exactly, including LangChain, PydanticAI, CrewAI, LlamaIndex, OpenAI Agents, Google ADK, Strands, and AgentCore. New integrations use Google GenAI, Bedrock, Microsoft Agent Framework, Agno, and Smolagents; Cloud accepts these strings but has no dedicated icons for them yet. The enum also includes OpenRouter, OpenTelemetry, and OpenInference for explicitly attributed external spans.

Claude Agent SDK's label is available as Integration.CLAUDE_AGENT_SDK, but its CLI subprocess exports directly to OTLP and bypasses the Python span processor. Stamping those remote spans requires support in the CLI or the receiving Collector; this SDK does not add duplicate local spans.

Manual span and request APIs

Initialize once before traced calls; decorators never initialize exporters. Python supports type="agent", "llm", "retriever", "tool", or "custom" (default). kind="step" / kind="tool" remain deprecated aliases; conflicting values raise. span scopes support with and async with.

update_span() updates the current span, and update_trace() updates the entry span (or the current OTel span). Both accept input/output, metadata, context, retrieval_context, expected_output, tools_called and expected_tools. Explicit content overrides automatic capture; supplied metadata replaces the object. Omitted fields remain unchanged. Content redaction and limits apply.

update_span(model=..., provider=..., input_token_count=..., output_token_count=..., cost_per_input_token=..., cost_per_output_token=...) records the active model span's fields. The same options work on span(type="llm"). Counts are nonnegative integers; rates are finite nonnegative USD per token, not per million tokens. Zero is retained. No metric execution or price calculation is performed. Updates require an active recording span.

turn(thread_id=..., previous=...) starts a new trace, optionally linked to a previous SpanContext, and supports sync/async scopes. Alternatively supply thread={"id": "chat", "tags": ["support"], "metadata": {"topic": "billing"}} on turn() or update_trace(). Thread fields emit confident.trace.thread.*; ID also emits legacy confident.trace.thread_id. Conflicting IDs raise. Thread metadata/tags remain separate from trace metadata/tags; supplied values replace within a trace. Backend merging/storage requires receiver support. update_trace(test_case_id=...) emits confident.trace.test_case_id; validate AI Connection linkage with the receiving deployment.

Use with suppress_tracing(): (or async with) before work to skip supported instrumentation. Use with project_context(api_key=tenant_key): before traced work to select its exporter. These scopes work in undecorated handlers that call instrumented clients; concurrent requests remain isolated. An active span cannot switch projects. Keys stay in private context and auth headers, never attributes or baggage. A fixed custom exporter needs project_exporter_factory(key); the returned exporters become runtime-owned. Idle routes are bounded to 64 after successful cleanup; active/queued routes are preserved. Flush/shutdown cover all owned routes. Independently exporting subprocesses and unrelated exporters keep their own configuration.

Spans export in normal batches as they finish. There is no late drop flag or whole-trace buffering. Outcome-based dropping requires collector tail sampling; a metadata flag without collector configuration drops nothing.

LLM fields on a non-LLM span are skipped with a warning once per incompatible category per process; general fields still apply. Updates without a recording span remain no-ops. The legacy update_llm_span helper remains a compatibility alias.

The same update helper works on agent, llm, retriever, tool, and custom spans. Input, output, metadata, context, retrieval context, expected output, and called/expected tools are shared fields on every category. Model, provider, tokens, and per-token costs require an LLM span. No separate category-specific update imports are needed.

Ambient trace context

Use trace_context(**fields) in Python (with or async with) or traceContext(fields, callback) in TypeScript to enrich real work without a synthetic span. Both accept the full trace-update field shape. Existing values and outer defaults win; tags, metadata, and thread objects are never merged. With no active trace, defaults apply to traces started inside the scope. Exiting restores ambient context without undoing fields already written. Use update_trace / updateTrace for explicit later replacements.

Metric collections are plain string names supported by span creation, trace context, trace updates, span updates, and turn creation. They export as confident.span.metric_collection or confident.trace.metric_collection, independent of content capture. Evaluation IDs remain trace-level fields.

with trace_context(metric_collection="answer-checks", test_case_id="case-1", turn_id="turn-1"):
    with span("retrieve", metric_collection="retrieval-checks"):
        update_span(metric_collection="updated-retrieval-checks")
        update_trace(metric_collection="updated-answer-checks")

LiteLLM

With LiteLLM already installed, run pip install confident-trace. Native LiteLLM instrumentation is enabled by default. Initialize before importing function aliases:

import confident_trace as ct
ct.init(instrumentations=("litellm", "openai"))

import litellm
response = litellm.completion(
    model="openai/gpt-4o-mini",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello"}],
)

Covers completion, acompletion, Router.completion, and Router.acompletion, including sync/async streaming. One logical LLM span includes the requested model (or Router alias), returned model, usage, messages and tool calls. Nested Confident provider spans are suppressed. Existing LiteLLM callbacks are left untouched; if another instrumentor already owns these calls, select only one instrumentation. Function aliases saved before init() are not retroactively replaced.

For an OpenAI client calling a LiteLLM proxy, configure the exact client base URL:

ct.init(litellm_proxy_urls=("http://localhost:4000/v1",))

These spans retain confident.span.integration=OpenAI and add confident.gateway.name=litellm; native spans use integration LiteLLM. gen_ai.provider.name=litellm identifies the intermediary, without guessing the upstream provider from an alias. URLs match the origin and full base path, ignoring trailing slashes; no credentials or URL values are exported.

This is application-side tracing. Gateway-internal retries, fallback attempts, caching and distributed trace propagation require separate gateway/HTTP OTel setup. Embeddings, legacy text completions, and other LiteLLM APIs are not covered. LiteLLM 1.81.0 is tested on Python 3.10 and 1.100.1 on Python 3.13; the latter fails to import on Python 3.10 due to an upstream typing.NotRequired import.

OpenRouter

With the OpenRouter SDK already installed, run pip install confident-trace. Native OpenRouter instrumentation is enabled by default, or select it explicitly:

import confident_trace as ct
ct.init(instrumentations=("openrouter", "openai"))

from openrouter import OpenRouter
with OpenRouter(api_key="...") as client:
    result = client.chat.send(
        model="openai/gpt-4o-mini",
        messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello"}],
    )

Covers chat.send and chat.send_async, including streaming, usage, messages, tool calls and errors. Initialize before caching bound method aliases. Messages supplied as lists are captured; instrumentation does not consume input generators.

OpenAI SDK calls to https://openrouter.ai/api/v1 are automatically identified as OpenRouter gateway calls. Custom endpoints can be listed in ct.init(openrouter_proxy_urls=("https://gateway.example/api/v1",)). Matching includes the exact origin and path (ignoring trailing slashes); model names and lookalike domains do not trigger detection. Explicit LiteLLM mappings have precedence if the same endpoint is configured for both gateways.

Native spans use integration OpenRouter; OpenAI client spans retain OpenAI and add confident.gateway.name=openrouter. Both use provider name openrouter, with requested and returned model names kept separate. Upstream routing is not inferred. Existing content privacy settings apply. This covers application-side chat calls, not gateway internals, embeddings, Responses, or the Agent SDK. Tested with openrouter==1.1.136.

Portkey

With the Portkey SDK already installed, run pip install confident-trace. Native Portkey instrumentation is enabled by default, or select it explicitly:

import confident_trace as ct
ct.init(instrumentations=("portkey", "openai"))

from portkey_ai import Portkey
with Portkey(api_key="...", provider="@openai-prod") as client:
    result = client.chat.completions.create(
        model="gpt-4o-mini",
        messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello"}],
    )

Covers chat.completions.create and responses.create on Portkey and AsyncPortkey, including streaming, usage, tool calls, errors and early stream closure. Initialize before caching bound methods. Clients created by with_options() remain instrumented; Portkey headers and routing configuration are preserved. Existing content capture and redaction settings apply.

OpenAI SDK calls to https://api.portkey.ai/v1 are automatically identified as Portkey gateway calls. For self-hosted/custom endpoints, use ct.init(portkey_proxy_urls=("https://gateway.example/v1",)). Exact origin and base path must match; trailing slashes are ignored. Matching uses the existing LiteLLM → OpenRouter → Portkey precedence for overlapping configurations. No keys, headers or gateway URLs are exported.

Native spans use integration Portkey; OpenAI SDK proxy spans retain OpenAI and add confident.gateway.name=portkey. Provider name is portkey, without guessing upstream providers from aliases or config IDs. Requested and returned models stay separate. Confident-owned nested provider spans are suppressed.

Tested with portkey-ai==2.3.4 on Python 3.10/3.13. This covers application-side calls, not Portkey's internal routing/retries, prompt-management endpoints, embeddings, separate streaming helpers, or gateway-side OTel configuration.

Bifrost gateway

Bifrost calls through the OpenAI and Anthropic SDKs use their existing automatic instrumentation. Register each client's full base URL explicitly:

import confident_trace as ct
from openai import OpenAI

ct.init(bifrost_proxy_urls=[
    "http://localhost:8080/openai",
    "http://localhost:8080/anthropic",
])
client = OpenAI(base_url="http://localhost:8080/openai", api_key="<virtual-key>")
client.chat.completions.create(model="openai/gpt-4o-mini", messages=[])

Supported surfaces are OpenAI chat completions/Responses and Anthropic Messages, including sync/async calls and streams. Spans retain their OpenAI or Anthropic SDK integration and set confident.gateway.name and gen_ai.provider.name to bifrost. Matching uses the exact origin and base path, ignoring trailing slashes; localhost is not detected automatically. URLs and virtual-key headers are not exported. This captures application calls, not Bifrost's internal routing, retries, fallbacks or background inference polling lifecycle. Native Go, GenAI and Bedrock clients are outside this integration's scope.

TrueFoundry gateway

Register your full TrueFoundry gateway base URL to identify calls made through OpenAI or Anthropic clients:

import os
import confident_trace as ct
from openai import OpenAI
from anthropic import Anthropic

base_url = os.environ["TRUEFOUNDRY_GATEWAY_BASE_URL"]
api_key = os.environ["TRUEFOUNDRY_API_KEY"]
ct.init(truefoundry_proxy_urls=[base_url])
openai_client = OpenAI(base_url=base_url, api_key=api_key)
anthropic_client = Anthropic(
    base_url=base_url,
    api_key=api_key,
    default_headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {api_key}"},
)

Call the clients normally using your TrueFoundry model names. OpenAI chat completions/Responses and Anthropic Messages use the existing SDK hooks, including sync/async calls and streaming helpers. Spans retain OpenAI or Anthropic as confident.span.integration and set gateway/provider identity to truefoundry. Exact origin and base path matching ignores trailing slashes. No hostname or model name guessing is used; configure custom or hosted endpoints explicitly. Client URLs and authentication headers are not exported. This is application-side tracing; Google GenAI/Bedrock gateway detection and gateway-internal routing/retries are outside this integration's scope.