gtracer 0.2.2

Lightweight span-based tracing for LangChain/LangGraph agents

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Lightweight span-based tracing for LangChain and LangGraph agents.

Emits structured JSONL spans via Python's standard logging — no new infrastructure, no agents, no dashboards required.

---

What it does

Every time an LLM call happens inside your agent, gtracer captures it as a structured span and writes it to stdout as JSON:

run
├── llm_call              ← direct LLM calls (preprocessing, classifiers)
└── agent "main"
    ├── llm_call seq:1    ← tokens, model, message delta, latency
    │   └── tool_call search_database  ← input, result, duration
    ├── llm_call seq:2
    │   └── tool_call calculator
    └── llm_call seq:3    ← final answer

Works with CloudWatch, Datadog, or any stdout log consumer. Zero configuration — spans are live the moment you import the package.

---

Install

pip install gtracer
# or
uv add gtracer

---

Quick Start

1. Import and go

import gtracer  # spans are live immediately — nothing else needed

gtracer auto-configures at import time. It attaches its own JSON handler with propagate=False — it never touches your app's root logger, no double-emission, no interference.

2. Wrap your agent

from gtracer import tracer, tracing_handler

async def run(session_id: str, user_input: str):
    tracer.start_trace(session_id)

    with tracer.span("run", tags={"session_id": session_id}):
        with tracer.span("agent", attrs={"agent": "main"}) as agent_span:
            result = await my_agent.ainvoke(
                {"messages": [{"role": "user", "content": user_input}]},
                config={"callbacks": [tracing_handler]},
            )
            agent_span.set_attr("output_type", type(result).__name__)
            return result

Every LLM call is now automatically captured — tokens, model, latency, message deltas.

3. Instrument your tools

from langchain_core.tools import tool
from gtracer import tracer

@tool
@tracer.tool()
async def search_database(query: str) -> str:
    """Run a database query."""
    return await execute_query(query)

The @tracer.tool() decorator automatically captures input arguments, records the return value, and resolves the parent llm_call span. For full control, use the context manager directly:

from gtracer import tracer, tracing_handler, span_id

@tool
async def search_database(query: str) -> str:
    """Run a database query."""
    llm_parent = tracing_handler.last_llm_span()
    with tracer.span("tool_call",
                     attrs={"tool": "search_database", "input": {"query": query}},
                     parent_span_id=llm_parent) as span:
        result = await execute_query(query)
        span.set_attr("result", result)
        return result

---

Environment Variables

Variable	Default	Description
GTRACER_ENABLED	true	Set to false to suppress all stdout output. Tracing mechanics stay fully active.
GTRACER_LOG_TO_FILE	false	Set to true to write spans to a file on disk.

Silence in Production

GTRACER_ENABLED=false python your_app.py

Spans are still created and timed — only output is suppressed.

Save Logs Locally

⚠️ Local scripts only. GTRACER_LOG_TO_FILE is intended for running Python scripts directly on your machine. Do not use it in Docker, ECS, Lambda, or any containerised/cloud environment — those environments have no persistent local filesystem and stdout is already captured by their log infrastructure.

GTRACER_LOG_TO_FILE=true python your_app.py

Creates logs/gtracer_<YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS>.jsonl in the directory where the script is run. The logs/ folder is created automatically if it doesn't exist. Spans are written to both the file and stdout.

Both variables can be combined:

GTRACER_ENABLED=false GTRACER_LOG_TO_FILE=true python your_app.py
# silences console output, still writes to file

---

Span Schema

Every span event is a flat JSON object on a single line:

{
  "ts": "2026-03-30T10:00:00",
  "level": "TRACE",
  "event": "span.end",
  "span_name": "llm_call",
  "trace_id": "abc123",
  "span_id": "a1b2c3d4",
  "parent_span_id": "e5f6a7b8",
  "status": "ok",
  "duration_ms": 1823,
  "attrs": {
    "agent": "main",
    "model": "claude-sonnet-4-6",
    "seq": 2,
    "tokens": {
      "input": 461,
      "output": 277,
      "total": 738,
      "input_cache_read": 15541
    },
    "stop_reason": "tool_use"
  }
}

Each llm_call span captures:

Field	Description
attrs.tokens	input, output, total, cache_read, cache_creation
attrs.model	exact model ID from the provider response
attrs.delta	new messages added since the previous LLM call
duration_ms	wall-clock latency in milliseconds
attrs.stop_reason	tool_use, end_turn, etc.

---

Configuration

from gtracer import configure

configure(truncation_limit=50_000)  # max chars for message content fields (default)

# You can also control output via code instead of env vars:
configure(enabled=False, log_to_file=True)

# Add custom span types to the taxonomy:
configure(extra_children={
    "agent": {"retrieval", "embedding"},
    "retrieval": {"llm_call"},
})

Trace-level metadata

Attach metadata to every span in a trace:

tracer.start_trace(session_id, metadata={"user_id": "u42", "env": "prod"})

Testing with InMemoryHandler

Collect spans in-memory for assertions instead of parsing JSON from stdout:

from gtracer import InMemoryHandler
import logging

handler = InMemoryHandler()
logging.getLogger("gtracer").addHandler(handler)

# ... run your agent ...

assert len(handler.records) == 6
assert handler.records[0].span_name == "run"
handler.clear()

---

API Reference

tracer — the singleton you import

Method	Description
tracer.start_trace(trace_id, metadata=None)	Set the current session/trace ID and optional trace-level metadata. Call once per invocation before any spans.
tracer.span(name, attrs, tags, parent_span_id)	Context manager — opens a span, yields SpanContext, auto-closes on exit.
@tracer.tool(name=None)	Decorator — instruments a function as a tool_call span. Auto-captures input/result and resolves parent.
tracer.current_span_id()	Return the current active span ID.
tracer.current_trace_id()	Return the current trace/session ID.
tracer.open_span(name, attrs, tags, parent_span_id)	Open a span without a context manager (for LangChain callbacks).
tracer.close_span(ctx, end_attrs)	Close a span opened with open_span().
tracer.error_span(ctx, exc)	Mark a span opened with open_span() as failed due to an exception.

SpanContext — the object yielded by span()

Method	Description
span.set_attr(key, value)	Accumulate an end-time attribute. Flushed into attrs on span.end.
span.fail(reason="")	Mark as a business-level failure. Emits span.end status:error (no exception needed).

tracing_handler — the LangChain callback

Method	Description
tracing_handler.last_llm_span(agent_span_id=None)	Returns the span_id of the most recent llm_call under the given agent span. Defaults to the current span_id ContextVar.

Attach to any LangChain/LangGraph agent: config={"callbacks": [tracing_handler]}.

ContextVars — for tool integration

Name	Type	Purpose
span_id	ContextVar[str | None]	Current active span ID. Pass to last_llm_span() inside tools.
trace_id	ContextVar[str | None]	Current session ID set by start_trace().
span_name	ContextVar[str | None]	Current active span name.
tags	ContextVar[dict]	Inherited tags, merged down the span tree.
agent_name	ContextVar[str]	Current agent name, set when opening an agent span.
trace_metadata	ContextVar[dict]	Trace-level metadata set by start_trace(). Merged into every span.

configure(truncation_limit, enabled, log_to_file, extra_children)

Call once at startup. truncation_limit (default 50,000) limits characters kept in delta, response, and result fields. enabled and log_to_file (both default None = preserve current state) override GTRACER_ENABLED and GTRACER_LOG_TO_FILE respectively. extra_children extends the span taxonomy with custom span types.

serialize_lc_messages(messages)

Converts a list of LangChain BaseMessage objects to JSON-serializable dicts. Respects the truncation limit.

---

Supported Patterns

Pattern	Description
create_agent	ReAct loop with tool use and structured output
StateGraph	LangGraph graphs with custom nodes
Nested agents	Agent-as-a-tool with causal span parenting
Deep Agents	LangChain create_deep_agent with sub-agents
Parallel tools	Concurrent tool calls under the same llm_call parent

See docs/documentation.md for full integration patterns, API reference, and gotchas.

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Known Limitations

Sync tools on Python 3.10–3.11: gtracer uses ContextVar to track the active span and trace. On Python <3.12, loop.run_in_executor() does not propagate context to worker threads. If LangGraph runs a synchronous tool from an async graph, the tool's span will be disconnected from the span tree (orphaned parent_span_id). Span lifecycle (open/close/tokens) still works correctly — only parent-child linking is affected.

Workarounds:

• Use async tools (always works — asyncio.create_task() copies context on all Python versions)
• Upgrade to Python 3.12+ (where run_in_executor() propagates context)
• Pass parent_span_id explicitly in sync tools via tracing_handler.last_llm_span(agent_span_id)

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Requirements