Documentation Index
Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://arize-ax.mintlify.dev/docs/llms.txt
Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
The most common production pattern: auto-instrumentation handles LLM provider calls, manual spans cover the custom parts (tool executions, orchestration, domain logic). They stitch together automatically into the same trace because they share the same TracerProvider.
If your app uses tool/function calling and auto only captures the LLM API call — not your code that runs the tool — this pattern fills in the gaps.
Set up auto-instrumentation
Register your tracer provider and auto-instrument your LLM provider:from arize.otel import register
from openinference.instrumentation.openai import OpenAIInstrumentor
tracer_provider = register(
space_id="YOUR_SPACE_ID",
api_key="YOUR_API_KEY",
project_name="my-project",
)
OpenAIInstrumentor().instrument(tracer_provider=tracer_provider)
Get a tracer for manual spans
Use the same TracerProvider to get a tracer — this ensures manual and auto spans end up in the same trace:from opentelemetry import trace
import openai
tracer = trace.get_tracer(__name__)
client = openai.OpenAI()
Add manual CHAIN and TOOL spans around your logic
Manual spans automatically nest as children of each other and alongside auto-instrumented spans:def run_agent(user_input: str) -> str:
with tracer.start_as_current_span("agent-run") as span:
span.set_attribute("openinference.span.kind", "CHAIN")
span.set_attribute("input.value", user_input)
# Auto-instrumented — appears as child LLM span automatically
response = client.chat.completions.create(
model="gpt-4o",
messages=[{"role": "user", "content": user_input}],
)
tool_call = response.choices[0].message.tool_calls[0]
# Manual TOOL span — also a child, captures tool execution
with tracer.start_as_current_span(tool_call.function.name) as tool_span:
tool_span.set_attribute("openinference.span.kind", "TOOL")
tool_span.set_attribute("input.value", tool_call.function.arguments)
result = run_tool(tool_call.function.name, tool_call.function.arguments)
tool_span.set_attribute("output.value", result)
span.set_attribute("output.value", result)
return result
Next step
Visualize your agent’s execution as an interactive graph:
