Laminar observability

Laminar is an open-source, Otel-native observability platform purpose-built for AI agents.

Laminar features:

A version of this guide is available in Laminar's docs.

Setup

You can use your coding agent to install Laminar or install it manually.

Setup with your coding agent

Copy the prompt below and paste it to your coding agent, for it to integrate fully automatically.

1. Run `npx lmnr-cli setup` at the project root to get started with Laminar. This command will authenticate the user, save a new project API key to .env, and install the Laminar skill.
2. Instrument this project with Laminar using the installed skill or the docs:
https://laminar.sh/docs/tracing/integrations/vercel-ai-sdk
3. Run a traced path inside your application.
4. Verify instrumentation:
`lmnr-cli sql query "SELECT * FROM traces ORDER BY start_time DESC LIMIT 1" --json`

Manual setup

To setup Laminar manually, first install the @lmnr-ai/lmnr package.

pnpm add @lmnr-ai/lmnr

Get your project API key and set in the environment

Then, either sign up on Laminar or self-host an instance (github) and create a new project.

Use npx lmnr-cli@latest setup. This will:

  • authenticate your device with Laminar,
  • create a new project API key and save it to your .env as LMNR_PROJECT_API_KEY,
  • install Laminar skill that your coding agent will use to instrument your agent using Laminar SDK

Next.js

Initialize tracing

In Next.js, Laminar initialization and the AI SDK telemetry integration should both be done in instrumentation.{ts,js}:

export async function register() {
// prevent this from running in the edge runtime
if (process.env.NEXT_RUNTIME === 'nodejs') {
const { registerTelemetry } = await import('ai');
const { LaminarAiSdkTelemetry } = await import('@lmnr-ai/lmnr');
registerTelemetry(new LaminarAiSdkTelemetry());
}
}

Add @lmnr-ai/lmnr to your next.config

In your next.config.js (.ts / .mjs), add the following lines:

const nextConfig = {
serverExternalPackages: ['@lmnr-ai/lmnr'],
};
export default nextConfig;

This is because Laminar depends on OpenTelemetry, which uses some Node.js-specific functionality, and we need to inform Next.js about it. Learn more in the Next.js docs.

Tracing AI SDK calls

Once the integration is registered, telemetry is captured automatically on every AI SDK call:

import { openai } from '@ai-sdk/openai';
import { generateText } from 'ai';
const { text } = await generateText({
model: openai('gpt-5.4-mini'),
prompt: 'What is Laminar flow?',
});

This will create spans for ai.generateText. Laminar collects and displays the following information:

  • LLM call input and output
  • Start and end time
  • Duration / latency
  • Provider and model used
  • Input and output tokens
  • Input and output price
  • Additional metadata and span attributes

Older versions of Next.js

If you are using 13.4 ≤ Next.js < 15, you will also need to enable the experimental instrumentation hook. Place the following in your next.config.js:

module.exports = {
experimental: {
instrumentationHook: true,
},
};

For more information, see Laminar's AI SDK Integration guide and Next.js instrumentation docs. You can also learn how to enable all traces for Next.js in the docs.

Usage with @vercel/otel

Laminar can live alongside @vercel/otel and trace AI SDK calls. The default Laminar setup will ensure that

  • regular Next.js traces are sent via @vercel/otel to your Telemetry backend configured with Vercel,
  • AI SDK and other LLM or browser agent traces are sent via Laminar.
import { registerOTel } from '@vercel/otel';
export async function register() {
if (process.env.NEXT_RUNTIME === 'nodejs') {
const { registerTelemetry } = await import('ai');
const { initializeLaminarInstrumentations, LaminarAiSdkTelemetry } =
await import('@lmnr-ai/lmnr');
// Next.js telemetry
registerOTel({
serviceName: 'my-service',
instrumentations: initializeLaminarInstrumentations(),
});
// Laminar AI SDK telemetry
registerTelemetry(new LaminarAiSdkTelemetry());
}
}

For an advanced configuration that allows you to trace all Next.js traces via Laminar, see an example repo.

Usage with @sentry/node

Laminar can live alongside @sentry/node and trace AI SDK calls. Make sure to initialize Laminar after Sentry.init.

This will ensure that

  • Whatever is instrumented by Sentry is sent to your Sentry backend,
  • AI SDK and other LLM or browser agent traces are sent via Laminar.
export async function register() {
if (process.env.NEXT_RUNTIME === 'nodejs') {
const { registerTelemetry } = await import('ai');
const Sentry = await import('@sentry/node');
const { LaminarAiSdkTelemetry } = await import('@lmnr-ai/lmnr');
Sentry.init({
dsn: process.env.SENTRY_DSN,
});
// Make sure to initialize Laminar **after** `Sentry.init`
registerTelemetry(new LaminarAiSdkTelemetry());
}
}

Node.js

Initialize tracing

Then, initialize tracing in your application:

import { registerTelemetry } from 'ai';
import { LaminarAiSdkTelemetry } from '@lmnr-ai/lmnr';
registerTelemetry(new LaminarAiSdkTelemetry());

This must be done once in your application, as early as possible, but after other tracing libraries (e.g. @sentry/node) are initialized.

Read more in Laminar docs.

Tracing AI SDK calls

Once the integration is registered, telemetry is captured automatically on every AI SDK call:

import { openai } from '@ai-sdk/openai';
import { generateText } from 'ai';
const { text } = await generateText({
model: openai('gpt-5.4-mini'),
prompt: 'What is Laminar flow?',
});

This will create spans for ai.generateText. Laminar collects and displays the following information:

  • LLM call input and output
  • Start and end time
  • Duration / latency
  • Provider and model used
  • Input and output tokens
  • Input and output price
  • Additional metadata and span attributes

Usage with @sentry/node

Laminar can work with @sentry/node to trace AI SDK calls. Make sure to initialize Laminar after Sentry.init:

const { LaminarAiSdkTelemetry } = await import('@lmnr-ai/lmnr');
const Sentry = await import('@sentry/node');
const { registerTelemetry } = await import('ai');
Sentry.init({
dsn: process.env.SENTRY_DSN,
});
registerTelemetry(new LaminarAiSdkTelemetry());

This will ensure that

  • Whatever is instrumented by Sentry is sent to your Sentry backend,
  • AI SDK and other LLM or browser agent traces are sent via Laminar.

The two libraries allow for additional advanced configuration, but the default setup above is recommended.

Additional configuration

Laminar options

LaminarAiSdkTelemetry can pass options to Laminar.initialize(). For self-hosting users,

import { registerTelemetry } from 'ai';
import { LaminarAiSdkTelemetry } from '@lmnr-ai/lmnr';
registerTelemetry(new LaminarAiSdkTelemetry({
laminarOptions: {
projectApiKey: process.env.LMNR_PROJECT_API_KEY,
baseUrl: "http://localhost",
httpPort: 8000,
grpcPort: 8001,
},
})));

Do not record inputs or outputs

By default, Laminar integration records all inputs and outputs, but you can disable these in the constructor options.

import { registerTelemetry } from 'ai';
import { LaminarAiSdkTelemetry } from '@lmnr-ai/lmnr';
registerTelemetry(new LaminarAiSdkTelemetry({
recordInputs: false, // default true
recordOutputs: false, // default true
})));

Adding a span for every agent step

AI SDK telemetry integrations emit step spans for every agent step. By default, Laminar ignores these spans. You can configure this in the constructor options.

import { registerTelemetry } from 'ai';
import { LaminarAiSdkTelemetry } from '@lmnr-ai/lmnr';
registerTelemetry(new LaminarAiSdkTelemetry({
createStepSpan: true, // default false
})));

Span name

If you want to override the default span name, you can set the functionId inside the telemetry option.

const { text } = await generateText({
model: openai('gpt-5.4-mini'),
prompt: `Write a poem about Laminar flow.`,
telemetry: {
functionId: 'poem-writer',
},
});

Nested spans

If you want to trace not just the AI SDK calls, but also other functions in your application, you can use Laminar's observe wrapper.

import { observe } from '@lmnr-ai/lmnr';
const result = await observe({ name: 'my-function' }, async () => {
// ... some work
await generateText({
//...
});
// ... some work
});

This will create a span with the name "my-function" and trace the function call. Inside it, you will see the nested ai.generateText spans.

To trace input arguments of the function that you wrap in observe, pass them to the wrapper as additional arguments. The return value of the function will be returned from the wrapper and traced as the span's output.

const result = await observe(
{ name: 'poem writer' },
async (topic: string, mood: string) => {
const { text } = await generateText({
model: openai('gpt-5.4-mini'),
prompt: `Write a poem about ${topic} in ${mood} mood.`,
});
return text;
},
'Laminar flow',
'happy',
);

Metadata

In Laminar, metadata is set on the trace level. Metadata contains key-value pairs and can be used to filter traces.

const { text } = await generateText({
model: openai('gpt-5.4-mini'),
prompt: `Write a poem about Laminar flow.`,
telemetry: {
metadata: {
'my-key': 'my-value',
'another-key': 'another-value',
},
},
});

This is converted to Laminar's metadata and stored in the trace.

Tags

One of the reserved metadata keys is tags. It can be used to add tags to the span.

Tags can subsequently be used to filter traces in Laminar.

const { text } = await generateText({
model: openai('gpt-5.4-mini'),
prompt: `Write a poem about Laminar flow.`,
telemetry: {
metadata: {
tags: ['fallback-model', 'api-handler'],
},
},
});

Session ID and User ID

Traces in Laminar can be grouped into sessions or by user ID. These are also reserved metadata keys.

const { text } = await generateText({
model: openai('gpt-5.4-mini'),
prompt: `Write a poem about Laminar flow.`,
telemetry: {
metadata: {
sessionId: 'session-123',
userId: 'user-123',
},
},
});