modaltrace 0.2.8

OpenTelemetry observability library for real-time AI applications

ModalTrace

OpenTelemetry observability for real-time AI video applications

Docs • API Reference • Examples • Comparison • Issues • Contributing

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ModalTrace is an OpenTelemetry library for real-time AI video pipelines. It captures traces, metrics, and logs across GPU operations, neural network inference, video rendering, and transport — with frame-level granularity and A/V sync tracking not available in general-purpose APM tools.

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Why ModalTrace?

Feature	ModalTrace	Langfuse	Datadog	W&B
Video AI metrics	✅	❌	❌	❌
GPU monitoring	✅	❌	✅	✅
Frame-level metrics	✅	❌	❌	❌
A/V sync tracking	✅	❌	❌	❌
Pricing	Free OSS	$29+/mo	$31+/host/mo	Paid

See the full comparison →

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Features

• Automatic span generation per pipeline stage with trace/metrics/log correlation
• Sub-millisecond frame rate, GPU memory, inference latency, and A/V drift metrics via ring buffer aggregation
• Standardized modaltrace.* attribute keys across all telemetry
• Auto-instrumentation for PyTorch forward/backward passes and GPU (utilization, memory, temperature, power)
• Adaptive sampling: anomaly-triggered capture for high-latency frames
• PII scrubbing with regex patterns and custom callbacks
• OTLP export over HTTP or gRPC to any compatible backend

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Quick Start

Install

pip install modaltrace

Optional extras:

pip install modaltrace[pytorch,gpu,webrtc,dashboard]
# or
pip install modaltrace[all]

Initialize

from modaltrace import ModalTraceSDK

sdk = ModalTraceSDK()
sdk.start()

# your pipeline code here

sdk.shutdown()

Configuration via environment variables or ModalTraceConfig:

MODALTRACE_SERVICE_NAME=my-video-pipeline
MODALTRACE_OTLP_ENDPOINT=http://localhost:4318
MODALTRACE_PYTORCH_INSTRUMENTATION=true
MODALTRACE_GPU_MONITORING=true

View telemetry

Built-in dashboard (local development):

from modaltrace.dashboard import DashboardServer

server = DashboardServer()
server.start()  # http://localhost:8000

External backend (Jaeger, Datadog, Honeycomb, etc.):

from modaltrace import get_tracer

tracer = get_tracer(__name__)

with tracer.start_as_current_span("process_frame") as span:
    span.set_attribute("modaltrace.pipeline.frame.sequence_number", frame_id)
    # your code here

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Configuration

All settings accept environment variables (MODALTRACE_ prefix) or Python kwargs to ModalTraceConfig.

Setting	Env Variable	Default	Description
Service Identity
service_name	MODALTRACE_SERVICE_NAME	modaltrace-pipeline	Service identifier in telemetry
service_version	MODALTRACE_SERVICE_VERSION	0.0.0	Semantic version
deployment_environment	MODALTRACE_DEPLOYMENT_ENVIRONMENT	development	Environment (dev/staging/prod)
OTLP Export
otlp_endpoint	MODALTRACE_OTLP_ENDPOINT	http://localhost:4318	Collector endpoint
otlp_protocol	MODALTRACE_OTLP_PROTOCOL	http	http or grpc
otlp_timeout_ms	MODALTRACE_OTLP_TIMEOUT_MS	10000	Export timeout (ms)
Feature Flags
pytorch_instrumentation	MODALTRACE_PYTORCH_INSTRUMENTATION	true	Auto-instrument PyTorch ops
gpu_monitoring	MODALTRACE_GPU_MONITORING	true	Track GPU metrics
webrtc_monitoring	MODALTRACE_WEBRTC_MONITORING	false	Monitor WebRTC transports
eventloop_monitoring	MODALTRACE_EVENTLOOP_MONITORING	true	Track event loop blocks
Sampler
pytorch_sample_rate	MODALTRACE_PYTORCH_SAMPLE_RATE	0.01	Fraction of PyTorch ops sampled
anomaly_threshold_ms	MODALTRACE_ANOMALY_THRESHOLD_MS	50.0	Latency threshold for anomaly capture
Metrics
metrics_flush_interval_ms	MODALTRACE_METRICS_FLUSH_INTERVAL_MS	1000	Aggregation window (ms)
ring_buffer_size	MODALTRACE_RING_BUFFER_SIZE	512	Must be power of 2
A/V Sync
av_drift_warning_ms	MODALTRACE_AV_DRIFT_WARNING_MS	40.0	Warn if drift exceeds this (ms)
av_chunk_ttl_s	MODALTRACE_AV_CHUNK_TTL_S	5.0	Chunk retention period (s)
PII Scrubbing
scrubbing_enabled	MODALTRACE_SCRUBBING_ENABLED	true	Enable PII removal
scrubbing_patterns	MODALTRACE_SCRUBBING_PATTERNS	[]	Regex patterns to scrub

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Architecture

modaltrace/
├── config.py                 # Pydantic configuration model
├── _registry.py             # Global SDK registry
├── conventions/
│   └── attributes.py        # Semantic convention constants
├── tracing/
│   ├── pipeline.py          # Main trace pipeline
│   ├── sampler.py           # Adaptive sampling logic
│   ├── pending.py           # Pending spans management
│   └── propagation.py       # Context propagation
├── metrics/
│   ├── instruments.py       # Metric instrument definitions
│   ├── aggregator.py        # Ring buffer aggregation
│   └── av_sync.py           # A/V sync metrics
├── instrumentation/
│   ├── pytorch.py           # PyTorch auto-instrumentation
│   ├── gpu.py               # GPU monitoring
│   ├── eventloop.py         # Event loop tracking
│   └── transport.py         # Network transport metrics
├── logging/
│   ├── api.py               # Structured logging API
│   └── scrubber.py          # PII scrubbing pipeline
└── exporters/
    └── setup.py             # OTLP exporter initialization

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Contributing

Open an issue to discuss changes, then submit a PR with tests. See CONTRIBUTING.md for setup and workflow details.

License

Apache License 2.0. See LICENSE.