Overview

Basalt’s observability system gives you end-to-end visibility into your AI workloads—from HTTP handlers and background jobs down to prompts, LLM calls, tools, and evaluators. It is built on OpenTelemetry and centered on two primitives:

start_observe – creates root spans that represent entire requests or workflows
observe – creates child spans for nested operations (LLM calls, RAG, tools, etc.)

Major v1 changes

Unified observe / start_observe API for tracing, logging, and context
Full OpenTelemetry support with automatic context propagation (sync and async)
Auto-instrumentation for LLMs, vector DBs, and popular frameworks
First-class identity, experiments, and evaluators attached to traces
Consistent APIs for sync and async functions (same decorators / context managers)

Root spans with `start_observe`

Every trace starts with a root span created by start_observe. Use this at the entry points of your system (HTTP handlers, workers, CLI commands).

from basalt.observability import start_observe, observe

@start_observe(
    feature_slug="request-processing",
    name="process_request",
    identity={
        "user": {"id": "user_123", "name": "Alice"},
        "organization": {"id": "org_abc"},
    },
    metadata={"environment": "production", "version": "2.0"},
)
def process():
    sub_task()
    return "done"

@observe(name="sub_task")
def sub_task():
    pass

All spans created under this root automatically share identity, experiment, and context.

Nested spans with `observe`

Use observe to create child spans that describe meaningful units of work:

LLM generations
Retrieval / RAG
Tool and function execution
Generic business logic

from basalt.observability import observe, ObserveKind

@observe(name="Generate Answer", kind=ObserveKind.GENERATION)
def generate_answer(prompt: str) -> str:
    # Call your LLM here
    ...

@observe(name="Search Documents", kind=ObserveKind.RETRIEVAL)
def search_documents(query: str):
    # Call your vector DB or search backend
    ...

Kinds (ObserveKind.GENERATION, RETRIEVAL, TOOL, etc.) make traces easier to explore and filter in the Basalt UI.

Enriching spans

You can attach additional information to the current active span using static helpers:

observe.set_identity(...) – set or update user/org identity
observe.metadata(...) / observe.update_metadata(...) – add metadata
observe.set_input(...) / observe.set_output(...) – capture inputs/outputs

from basalt.observability import observe

observe.set_identity({
    "user": {"id": "user-123"},
    "organization": {"id": "org-456"},
})

observe.metadata(environment="production", feature_flag="new-search")
observe.set_input({"query": "reset my password"})
observe.set_output({"status": "ok"})

Async monitoring

The same decorators work for async functions. For advanced use, explicit async variants async_start_observe and async_observe are also available.

from basalt.observability import start_observe, observe

@start_observe(feature_slug="async-api", name="Handle Async Request")
async def handle_request_async(data):
    return await process_async(data)

@observe(name="Process Async")
async def process_async(data):
    ...

Basalt automatically propagates trace context across async boundaries, so all spans end up in the same trace.

Client Initialization

Basic initialization

The simplest way to initialize Basalt:

from basalt import Basalt
import os

basalt = Basalt(api_key=os.environ["BASALT_API_KEY"])

With observability metadata

Attach global metadata that will be added to all traces:

from basalt import Basalt

basalt = Basalt(
    api_key="your-api-key",
    observability_metadata={
        "service.name": "my-app",
        "service.version": "1.2.3",
        "deployment.environment": "production",
        "deployment.region": "us-west-2",
    },
)

With telemetry configuration

For advanced configuration of OpenTelemetry behavior and auto-instrumentation:

from basalt import Basalt, TelemetryConfig

telemetry = TelemetryConfig(
    service_name="my-service",
    environment="production",
    enable_instrumentation=True,
    trace_content=True,
    enabled_providers=["openai", "anthropic"],  # Only enable specific providers
)

basalt = Basalt(
    api_key="your-api-key",
    telemetry_config=telemetry,
)

With selective auto-instrumentation

Enable or disable auto-instrumentation providers:

from basalt import Basalt

basalt = Basalt(
    api_key="your-api-key",
    enabled_instruments=["openai", "anthropic", "chromadb"],
)

# Or disable specific providers
basalt = Basalt(
    api_key="your-api-key",
    disabled_instruments=["langchain"],  # Don't instrument LangChain
)

Shutdown

Always call shutdown() before your application exits to flush pending telemetry:

basalt.shutdown()

TelemetryConfig Reference

from basalt import TelemetryConfig

config = TelemetryConfig(
    enabled=True,                              # Enable/disable telemetry entirely
    service_name="my-service",                 # OpenTelemetry service name
    service_version="1.2.3",                   # Service version
    environment="production",                  # deployment.environment
    enable_instrumentation=True,               # Enable auto-instrumentation
    trace_content=True,                        # Include trace content in exports
    enabled_providers=["openai", "anthropic"], # Specific providers to instrument
    disabled_providers=[],                     # Providers to skip
    exporter=None,                             # Custom SpanExporter (advanced)
    extra_resource_attributes={                # Additional OTEL resource attributes
        "custom_key": "custom_value"
    },
    sample_rate=0.0,                           # Evaluator sampling rate (0.0-1.0)
)

Supported providers for enabled_providers/disabled_providers:

LLMs: openai, anthropic, google_generativeai, bedrock, vertexai, ollama, mistralai, together, replicate
Vector DBs: chromadb, pinecone, qdrant
Frameworks: langchain, llamaindex, haystack

Environment Variables

You can also configure Basalt using environment variables:

Variable	Purpose	Example
`BASALT_API_KEY`	API authentication key	`sk-...`
`BASALT_TELEMETRY_ENABLED`	Enable/disable telemetry	`true` or `false`
`BASALT_SERVICE_NAME`	Service name for traces	`my-app`
`BASALT_ENVIRONMENT`	Deployment environment	`production`
`BASALT_LOG_LEVEL`	Log level for Basalt loggers	`DEBUG`, `INFO`, `WARNING`
`BASALT_ENABLED_INSTRUMENTS`	Comma-separated list of providers to enable	`openai,anthropic`
`BASALT_DISABLED_INSTRUMENTS`	Comma-separated list of providers to disable	`langchain`
`BASALT_OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT`	Custom OTLP endpoint	`http://localhost:4317`
`BASALT_SAMPLE_RATE`	Global evaluation sample rate	`0.1`

Use the Concepts, Patterns, and Workflows pages for deeper guidance, and the API Reference for the full Python surface area.

Start Here

Prompts

Datasets

Experiments

Observability

Learn more

Overview

Overview

Major v1 changes

Root spans with `start_observe`

Nested spans with `observe`

Enriching spans

Async monitoring

Client Initialization

Basic initialization

With observability metadata

With telemetry configuration

With selective auto-instrumentation

Shutdown

TelemetryConfig Reference

Environment Variables

Start Here

Prompts

Datasets

Experiments

Observability

Learn more

​Overview

​Major v1 changes

​Root spans with start_observe

​Nested spans with observe

​Enriching spans

​Async monitoring

​Client Initialization

​Basic initialization

​With observability metadata

​With telemetry configuration

​With selective auto-instrumentation

​Shutdown

​TelemetryConfig Reference

​Environment Variables

Overview

Major v1 changes

Root spans with `start_observe`

Nested spans with `observe`

Enriching spans

Async monitoring

Client Initialization

Basic initialization

With observability metadata

With telemetry configuration

With selective auto-instrumentation

Shutdown

TelemetryConfig Reference

Environment Variables