OpenAI Agents SDK

The OpenTelemetry instrumentors for the Agents SDK and OpenAI client record your existing agent loop. The Agents instrumentor captures invocations and tools; the client instrumentor captures model requests and token usage. Enable message capture to inspect prompts, responses and tool payloads in Radiant.

Configure export

Use your existing Python application and the endpoint and ingestion key from Set up your project. Install the OpenTelemetry exporter and both instrumentors alongside the Agents SDK:

Terminal

python -m pip install opentelemetry-sdk opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-proto-http \
  opentelemetry-instrumentation-genai-openai-agents==1.3b0 \
  opentelemetry-instrumentation-genai-openai==1.3b0

These examples use the upstream instrumentors at version 1.3b0. Keep the Agents SDK and model configuration already used by your application.

Application environment

export RADIANT_TRACES_ENDPOINT='https://YOUR_INGESTION_HOST/v1/traces'
export RADIANT_INGESTION_KEY='YOUR_INGESTION_KEY'
export OTEL_SERVICE_NAME='YOUR_APPLICATION_NAME'

Initialize the provider and instrumentors at application startup, before creating agents or making model requests. If the application already has an OpenTelemetry SDK provider, add the exporter to that provider instead of creating another one.

tracing.py

import os
from opentelemetry import trace
from opentelemetry.exporter.otlp.proto.http.trace_exporter import OTLPSpanExporter
from opentelemetry.sdk.resources import Resource
from opentelemetry.sdk.trace import TracerProvider
from opentelemetry.sdk.trace.export import BatchSpanProcessor

provider = TracerProvider(
    resource=Resource.create({"service.name": os.environ["OTEL_SERVICE_NAME"]})
)
provider.add_span_processor(
    BatchSpanProcessor(
        OTLPSpanExporter(
            endpoint=os.environ["RADIANT_TRACES_ENDPOINT"],
            headers={"Authorization": "Bearer " + os.environ["RADIANT_INGESTION_KEY"]},
        )
    )
)
trace.set_tracer_provider(provider)

from opentelemetry.instrumentation.genai.openai_agents import OpenAIAgentsInstrumentor
from opentelemetry.instrumentation.genai.openai import OpenAIInstrumentor

OpenAIAgentsInstrumentor().instrument()
OpenAIInstrumentor().instrument()

Import this module during startup. Your existing Runner.run(...), Runner.run_sync(...) and tool definitions can remain unchanged. The instrumentors record their operations and preserve their parent-child relationships; remove any manual spans that duplicate the same agent or tool operations.

The Agents SDK can also export its own traces to OpenAI. To send its trace data only through OpenTelemetry, pass disable_openai_trace_export=True to OpenAIAgentsInstrumentor().instrument(...).

Capture messages and tool payloads

Set this before starting the application when you want model input/output messages and tool arguments/results on the exported spans:

Application environment

export OTEL_INSTRUMENTATION_GENAI_CAPTURE_MESSAGE_CONTENT='SPAN_ONLY'

Content capture is off by default. Enabling it can include application data supplied to models and tools. Model identity, timing and token usage are recorded without enabling message content.

Keep the provider alive across requests. Call provider.shutdown() in the application’s shutdown lifecycle to flush buffered spans. For streaming runs, consume the stream before shutting down the provider.

Connect runs into conversations

Pass your application’s conversation identifier through RunConfig.group_id at the existing runner call:

At the existing Runner call

from agents import RunConfig, Runner

result = await Runner.run(
    agent,
    user_input,
    run_config=RunConfig(group_id=conversation_id),
)

Merge group_id into an existing RunConfig if you already supply one. The instrumentor exports it as gen_ai.conversation.id. Reuse the identifier across turns in the same conversation; each invocation remains a separate agent run in Radiant.

Add application context

For labels shared by the process, use OpenTelemetry resource attributes before startup:

Application environment

export OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES='deployment.environment.name=production,app.release=2026.10.30'

For request-specific attributes, put a normal OpenTelemetry span around the existing runner call and add the attributes there. The SDK’s native invocation remains a child of that request span. The OpenTelemetry guide explains attribute scope.

Inspect an invocation

Run an existing request and open the project’s Logs. All agent runs shows the invocation; opening it reveals its model requests and tools. Select a model operation to inspect captured messages in Thread, or select a tool to inspect its arguments and result. Conversations brings together runs with the same conversation identifier.

For SDK tracing controls, see the official Agents SDK observability guide. The upstream Agents instrumentor documents the OpenTelemetry integration. For export failures, see tracing troubleshooting.