tracing

OpenAI Agents: Tracing

Shows the three tracing paths the Temporal OpenAI Agents integration supports. OpenAI Agents SDK tracing works across Client, Workflow, Activity, Nexus, and MCP boundaries, and Workflow replay does not duplicate spans.

The Worker selects a tracing mode (default custom):

npx ts-node src/tracing/worker.ts <mode>     # mode: custom | openai | otel
# or set TRACING_MODE=<mode>

All modes also set interceptorOptions: { addTemporalSpans: true }, which emits temporal:* orchestration spans (Workflow starts, Activities, Signals, and so on) to whichever sink is active.

1. custom — a custom TracingProcessor

Registers a RecordingTracingProcessor (see src/tracing/recording-processor.ts) via addTraceProcessor. It receives every trace and span lifecycle callback, so you can record, filter, or forward spans anywhere. This is the mode exercised by the test.

2. openai — OpenAI hosted traces

Registers the upstream hosted exporter before constructing the plugin, so traces appear on the OpenAI dashboard:

addTraceProcessor(new BatchTraceProcessor(new OpenAITracingExporter()));

Register this in the Worker process, not inside Workflow code.

3. otel — OpenTelemetry

Installs a replay-safe tracer provider from @temporalio/openai-agents/otel and enables useOtelInstrumentation:

trace.setGlobalTracerProvider(createTracerProvider());
// plugin: interceptorOptions: { useOtelInstrumentation: true }

createTracerProvider uses TemporalIdGenerator for replay-safe span/trace IDs. This mode requires the optional peer dependency @opentelemetry/sdk-trace-base.

Run

temporal server start-dev

Run these from the openai-agents/ root (run npm install there once first).

export OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...
npx ts-node src/tracing/worker.ts custom

npx ts-node src/tracing/client.ts "What is 42 plus 58?"

Test

The test runs offline with a FakeModelProvider. It registers a custom TracingProcessor, runs an agent that calls a function tool, and asserts that agent and function spans were emitted.

npx mocha --exit --require ts-node/register --require source-map-support/register "src/tracing/mocha/*.test.ts"