Safety & ops
What is Agent Observability?
Observability is the ability to inspect inputs, tool calls, results, and outputs of a run.
If you cannot see the tool events, you cannot debug the agent.
Why it matters
Observability is the ability to inspect every step of an agent run: inputs, tool calls, observations, decisions, and outputs. If you cannot see the events, you cannot debug the agent.
Observability tools for agents include trace viewers, step-by-step logs, tool call analytics, and error rate dashboards.
Key takeaways
- 1If you cannot see the trace, you cannot debug the agent.
- 2Log every tool call, observation, and decision.
- 3Traces should be human-readable, not just machine-parseable.
Common mistakes
- ✕Logging only the final output without the intermediate steps.
- ✕Making traces so verbose they are unusable.
Related terms
Concept neighborhood
Terms linked from Agent Observability in the glossary graph.
- Agent Observability
- Agent Evaluation
- Trace