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SmolAgents → OpenObserve

Automatically capture agent runs, tool executions, code generation steps, and LLM calls for every SmolAgents workflow in your Python application.

Prerequisites

  • Python 3.10+
  • An OpenObserve account (cloud or self-hosted)
  • Your OpenObserve organisation ID and Base64-encoded auth token
  • An OpenAI API key or a HuggingFace token for the model backend

Installation

pip install openobserve-telemetry-sdk openinference-instrumentation-smolagents "smolagents[litellm]" python-dotenv

Configuration

Create a .env file in your project root:

# OpenObserve instance URL
# Default for self-hosted: http://localhost:5080
OPENOBSERVE_URL=https://api.openobserve.ai/

# Your OpenObserve organisation slug or ID
OPENOBSERVE_ORG=your_org_id

# Basic auth token — Base64-encoded "email:password"
OPENOBSERVE_AUTH_TOKEN=Basic <your_base64_token>

# LLM provider key (whichever model backend the agent uses)
OPENAI_API_KEY=your-openai-key

Instrumentation

Call SmolagentsInstrumentor().instrument() before importing SmolAgents.

from dotenv import load_dotenv
load_dotenv()

from openinference.instrumentation.smolagents import SmolagentsInstrumentor
from openobserve import openobserve_init

SmolagentsInstrumentor().instrument()
openobserve_init()

import os
from smolagents import CodeAgent, LiteLLMModel

model = LiteLLMModel(
    model_id="openai/gpt-4o-mini",
    api_key=os.environ["OPENAI_API_KEY"],
)
agent = CodeAgent(tools=[], model=model)

result = agent.run("What is the square root of 144?")
print(result)

Tool use

from smolagents import CodeAgent, LiteLLMModel, tool

@tool
def get_current_time() -> str:
    """Returns the current UTC time."""
    from datetime import datetime, timezone
    return datetime.now(timezone.utc).isoformat()

agent = CodeAgent(tools=[get_current_time], model=model)
result = agent.run("What time is it right now in UTC?")
print(result)

What Gets Captured

Each agent.run() call produces a root AGENT span with child LLM spans for every model call, and TOOL spans when tools are invoked.

LLM span

Attribute Description
openinference_span_kind LLM
operation_name LiteLLMModel.generate
llm_model_name Model used (e.g. openai/gpt-4o-mini)
llm_provider openai
llm_system openai
llm_observation_type GENERATION
llm_token_count_prompt Input token count
llm_token_count_completion Output token count
llm_token_count_total Total tokens consumed
llm_usage_tokens_input Input tokens (numeric)
llm_usage_tokens_output Output tokens (numeric)
llm_usage_cost_input Estimated input cost in USD
llm_usage_cost_output Estimated output cost in USD
gen_ai_response_model Model that handled the request
duration Span latency
span_status OK on success, ERROR on failure

Viewing Traces

  1. Log in to OpenObserve and navigate to Traces in the left sidebar
  2. Click any root agent span to open the waterfall view
  3. Expand the tree to see child LiteLLMModel.generate LLM spans per reasoning step
  4. Filter by llm_model_name to compare token usage across different model backends

SmolAgents trace in OpenObserve

Next Steps

With SmolAgents instrumented, every agent run is recorded in OpenObserve with a full span hierarchy. From here you can track token consumption per agent task, measure tool execution latency, and monitor multi-step reasoning chains.

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