Crew AI Observability & Monitoring with OpenTelemetry

Overview

This guide walks you through setting up observability and monitoring for Crew AI using OpenTelemetry and exporting logs, traces, and metrics to SigNoz. With this integration, you can observe agent, model, tool performance, and track system-level metrics in SigNoz, giving you real-time visibility into latency, error rates, and usage trends for your Crew AI applications.

Instrumenting Crew AI in your LLM applications with telemetry ensures full observability across your AI workflows, making it easier to debug issues, optimize performance, and understand user interactions. By leveraging SigNoz, you can analyze correlated traces, logs, and metrics in unified dashboards, configure alerts, and gain actionable insights to continuously improve reliability, responsiveness, and user experience.

Prerequisites

SigNoz setup (choose one):
- SigNoz Cloud account with an active ingestion key
- Self-hosted SigNoz instance
Internet access to send telemetry data to SigNoz Cloud
Crew AI integrated into your app
Basic understanding of AI Agents and tool calling workflow
For Python: pip installed for managing Python packages and (optional but recommended) a Python virtual environment to isolate dependencies

Monitoring Crew AI

No-code auto-instrumentation is recommended for quick setup with minimal code changes. It's ideal when you want to get observability up and running without modifying your application code and are leveraging standard instrumentor libraries.

Step 1: Install the necessary packages in your Python environment.

pip install \
  opentelemetry-distro \
  opentelemetry-exporter-otlp \
  opentelemetry-instrumentation-httpx \
  opentelemetry-instrumentation-system-metrics \
  openinference-instrumentation-crewai \
  openinference-instrumentation-openai \
  crewai \
  crewai-tools

Step 2: Add Automatic Instrumentation

opentelemetry-bootstrap --action=install

Step 3: Configure logging level

To ensure logs are properly captured and exported, configure the root logger to emit logs at the INFO level or higher:

import logging
logging.getLogger().setLevel(logging.INFO)

This sets the minimum log level for the root logger to INFO, which ensures that logger.info() calls and higher severity logs (WARNING, ERROR, CRITICAL) are captured by the OpenTelemetry logging auto-instrumentation and sent to SigNoz.

Step 4: Run an example

import os
from crewai import Agent, Task, Crew, Process
from crewai_tools import SerperDevTool

search_tool = SerperDevTool()

# Define your agents with roles and goals
researcher = Agent(
  role='Senior Research Analyst',
  goal='Uncover cutting-edge developments in AI and data science',
  backstory="""You work at a leading tech think tank.
  Your expertise lies in identifying emerging trends.
  You have a knack for dissecting complex data and presenting actionable insights.""",
  verbose=True,
  allow_delegation=False,
  # You can pass an optional llm attribute specifying what model you wanna use.
  # llm=ChatOpenAI(model_name="gpt-3.5", temperature=0.7),
  tools=[search_tool]
)
writer = Agent(
  role='Tech Content Strategist',
  goal='Craft compelling content on tech advancements',
  backstory="""You are a renowned Content Strategist, known for your insightful and engaging articles.
  You transform complex concepts into compelling narratives.""",
  verbose=True,
  allow_delegation=True
)

# Create tasks for your agents
task1 = Task(
  description="""Conduct a comprehensive analysis of the latest advancements in AI in 2024.
  Identify key trends, breakthrough technologies, and potential industry impacts.""",
  expected_output="Full analysis report in bullet points",
  agent=researcher
)

task2 = Task(
  description="""Using the insights provided, develop an engaging blog
  post that highlights the most significant AI advancements.
  Your post should be informative yet accessible, catering to a tech-savvy audience.
  Make it sound cool, avoid complex words so it doesn't sound like AI.""",
  expected_output="Full blog post of at least 4 paragraphs",
  agent=writer
)

# Instantiate your crew with a sequential process
crew = Crew(
  agents=[researcher, writer],
  tasks=[task1, task2],
  verbose=True,
  process=Process.sequential
)

# Get your crew to work!
result = crew.kickoff()

print("######################")
print(result)

📌 Note: Before running this code, ensure that the API key of the specific LLM you are choosing is set as an env variable. In this example, since OpenAI is being used, set OPENAI_API_KEY with your working API key. Additionally, for this specific example, you need to create a Serper account, generate an API key, and set it as the environment variable SERPER_API_KEY.

Step 5: Run your application with auto-instrumentation

OTEL_RESOURCE_ATTRIBUTES="service.name=<service_name>" \
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT="https://ingest.us.signoz.cloud:443" \
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS="signoz-ingestion-key=<your-ingestion-key>" \
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL=grpc \
OTEL_TRACES_EXPORTER=otlp \
OTEL_METRICS_EXPORTER=otlp \
OTEL_LOGS_EXPORTER=otlp \
OTEL_PYTHON_LOG_CORRELATION=true \
OTEL_PYTHON_LOGGING_AUTO_INSTRUMENTATION_ENABLED=true \
opentelemetry-instrument <your_run_command>

<service_name> is the name of your service
us: Your SigNoz Cloud region
<your-ingestion-key>: Your SigNoz ingestion key
Replace <your_run_command> with the actual command you would use to run your application. For example: python main.py

✅ Info

Using self-hosted SigNoz? Most steps are identical. To adapt this guide, update the endpoint and remove the ingestion key header as shown in Cloud → Self-Hosted.

Code-based instrumentation gives you fine-grained control over your telemetry configuration. Use this approach when you need to customize resource attributes, sampling strategies, or integrate with existing observability infrastructure.

Step 1: Install the necessary packages in your Python environment.

CrewAI supports a variety of LLM providers for agent workflows, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google (Gemini/Vertex AI), Azure, AWS Bedrock, Mistral, Groq, Ollama, and more. See the full list of supported LLM providers.

Based on which LLM provider you're using with CrewAI, you'll need to install the corresponding OpenInference instrumentor to track LLM-related traces. See the OpenInference documentation for available instrumentors.

For this example using OpenAI:

pip install \
  opentelemetry-api \
  opentelemetry-sdk \
  opentelemetry-exporter-otlp \
  opentelemetry-instrumentation-httpx \
  opentelemetry-instrumentation-system-metrics \
  openinference-instrumentation-crewai \
  openinference-instrumentation-openai \
  crewai \
  crewai-tools

📌 Note: If you're using a different LLM provider (e.g., Anthropic, Bedrock, Mistral), replace openinference-instrumentation-openai with the appropriate instrumentor package such as openinference-instrumentation-anthropic, openinference-instrumentation-bedrock, etc.

Step 2: Import the necessary modules in your Python application

Traces:

from openinference.instrumentation.crewai import CrewAIInstrumentor
from openinference.instrumentation.openai import OpenAIInstrumentor
from opentelemetry import trace
from opentelemetry.sdk.resources import Resource
from opentelemetry.sdk.trace import TracerProvider
from opentelemetry.sdk.trace.export import BatchSpanProcessor
from opentelemetry.exporter.otlp.proto.http.trace_exporter import OTLPSpanExporter

Logs:

from opentelemetry.sdk._logs import LoggerProvider, LoggingHandler
from opentelemetry.sdk._logs.export import BatchLogRecordProcessor
from opentelemetry.exporter.otlp.proto.http._log_exporter import OTLPLogExporter
from opentelemetry._logs import set_logger_provider
import logging

Metrics:

from opentelemetry.sdk.metrics import MeterProvider
from opentelemetry.exporter.otlp.proto.http.metric_exporter import OTLPMetricExporter
from opentelemetry.sdk.metrics.export import PeriodicExportingMetricReader
from opentelemetry import metrics
from opentelemetry.instrumentation.system_metrics import SystemMetricsInstrumentor
from opentelemetry.instrumentation.httpx import HTTPXClientInstrumentor

Step 3: Set up the OpenTelemetry Tracer Provider to send traces directly to SigNoz Cloud

from opentelemetry.sdk.resources import Resource
from opentelemetry.sdk.trace import TracerProvider
from opentelemetry.sdk.trace.export import BatchSpanProcessor
from opentelemetry.exporter.otlp.proto.http.trace_exporter import OTLPSpanExporter
from opentelemetry import trace
import os

resource = Resource.create({"service.name": "<service_name>"})
provider = TracerProvider(resource=resource)
span_exporter = OTLPSpanExporter(
    endpoint= os.getenv("OTEL_EXPORTER_TRACES_ENDPOINT"),
    headers={"signoz-ingestion-key": os.getenv("SIGNOZ_INGESTION_KEY")},
)
processor = BatchSpanProcessor(span_exporter)
provider.add_span_processor(processor)
trace.set_tracer_provider(provider)

<service_name> is the name of your service
OTEL_EXPORTER_TRACES_ENDPOINT → SigNoz Cloud trace endpoint with appropriate region:https://ingest.us.signoz.cloud:443/v1/traces
SIGNOZ_INGESTION_KEY → Your SigNoz ingestion key

✅ Info

Using self-hosted SigNoz? Most steps are identical. To adapt this guide, update the endpoint and remove the ingestion key header as shown in Cloud → Self-Hosted.

Step 4: Instrument Crew AI and your LLM provider using their respective instrumentors with the configured Tracer Provider

from openinference.instrumentation.crewai import CrewAIInstrumentor
from openinference.instrumentation.openai import OpenAIInstrumentor

CrewAIInstrumentor().instrument(tracer_provider=provider)
OpenAIInstrumentor().instrument(tracer_provider=provider)

📌 Important: You must instrument both Crew AI and the LLM provider you're using with Crew AI. In this example, we're using OpenAI, so we instrument both CrewAIInstrumentor and OpenAIInstrumentor. If you're using a different LLM provider (e.g., Anthropic, Bedrock, Mistral), replace OpenAIInstrumentor with the appropriate instrumentor for your provider.
📌 Important: Place this code at the start of your application logic — before any Crew AI functions are called or used — to ensure telemetry is correctly captured.

Step 5: Setup Logs

import logging
from opentelemetry.sdk.resources import Resource
from opentelemetry._logs import set_logger_provider
from opentelemetry.sdk._logs import LoggerProvider, LoggingHandler
from opentelemetry.sdk._logs.export import BatchLogRecordProcessor
from opentelemetry.exporter.otlp.proto.http._log_exporter import OTLPLogExporter
import os

resource = Resource.create({"service.name": "<service_name>"})
logger_provider = LoggerProvider(resource=resource)
set_logger_provider(logger_provider)

otlp_log_exporter = OTLPLogExporter(
    endpoint= os.getenv("OTEL_EXPORTER_LOGS_ENDPOINT"),
    headers={"signoz-ingestion-key": os.getenv("SIGNOZ_INGESTION_KEY")},
)
logger_provider.add_log_record_processor(
    BatchLogRecordProcessor(otlp_log_exporter)
)
# Attach OTel logging handler to root logger
handler = LoggingHandler(level=logging.INFO, logger_provider=logger_provider)
logging.basicConfig(level=logging.INFO, handlers=[handler])

logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)

<service_name> is the name of your service
OTEL_EXPORTER_LOGS_ENDPOINT → SigNoz Cloud endpoint with appropriate region:https://ingest.us.signoz.cloud:443/v1/logs
SIGNOZ_INGESTION_KEY → Your SigNoz ingestion key

✅ Info

Using self-hosted SigNoz? Most steps are identical. To adapt this guide, update the endpoint and remove the ingestion key header as shown in Cloud → Self-Hosted.

Step 6: Setup Metrics

from opentelemetry.sdk.resources import Resource
from opentelemetry.sdk.metrics import MeterProvider
from opentelemetry.exporter.otlp.proto.http.metric_exporter import OTLPMetricExporter
from opentelemetry.sdk.metrics.export import PeriodicExportingMetricReader
from opentelemetry import metrics
from opentelemetry.instrumentation.system_metrics import SystemMetricsInstrumentor
import os

resource = Resource.create({"service.name": "<service-name>"})
metric_exporter = OTLPMetricExporter(
    endpoint= os.getenv("OTEL_EXPORTER_METRICS_ENDPOINT"),
    headers={"signoz-ingestion-key": os.getenv("SIGNOZ_INGESTION_KEY")},
)
reader = PeriodicExportingMetricReader(metric_exporter)
metric_provider = MeterProvider(metric_readers=[reader], resource=resource)
metrics.set_meter_provider(metric_provider)

meter = metrics.get_meter(__name__)

# turn on out-of-the-box metrics
SystemMetricsInstrumentor().instrument()
HTTPXClientInstrumentor().instrument()

<service_name> is the name of your service
OTEL_EXPORTER_METRICS_ENDPOINT → SigNoz Cloud endpoint with appropriate region:https://ingest.us.signoz.cloud:443/v1/metrics
SIGNOZ_INGESTION_KEY → Your SigNoz ingestion key

📌 Note: SystemMetricsInstrumentor provides system metrics (CPU, memory, etc.), and HTTPXClientInstrumentor provides outbound HTTP request metrics such as request duration. These are not Crew AI-specific metrics. Crew AI does not expose metrics as part of their SDK. If you want to add custom metrics to your Crew AI application, see Python Custom Metrics.

✅ Info

Using self-hosted SigNoz? Most steps are identical. To adapt this guide, update the endpoint and remove the ingestion key header as shown in Cloud → Self-Hosted.

Step 7: Run an example

import os
from crewai import Agent, Task, Crew, Process
from crewai_tools import SerperDevTool

search_tool = SerperDevTool()

# Define your agents with roles and goals
researcher = Agent(
  role='Senior Research Analyst',
  goal='Uncover cutting-edge developments in AI and data science',
  backstory="""You work at a leading tech think tank.
  Your expertise lies in identifying emerging trends.
  You have a knack for dissecting complex data and presenting actionable insights.""",
  verbose=True,
  allow_delegation=False,
  # You can pass an optional llm attribute specifying what model you wanna use.
  # llm=ChatOpenAI(model_name="gpt-3.5", temperature=0.7),
  tools=[search_tool]
)
writer = Agent(
  role='Tech Content Strategist',
  goal='Craft compelling content on tech advancements',
  backstory="""You are a renowned Content Strategist, known for your insightful and engaging articles.
  You transform complex concepts into compelling narratives.""",
  verbose=True,
  allow_delegation=True
)

# Create tasks for your agents
task1 = Task(
  description="""Conduct a comprehensive analysis of the latest advancements in AI in 2024.
  Identify key trends, breakthrough technologies, and potential industry impacts.""",
  expected_output="Full analysis report in bullet points",
  agent=researcher
)

task2 = Task(
  description="""Using the insights provided, develop an engaging blog
  post that highlights the most significant AI advancements.
  Your post should be informative yet accessible, catering to a tech-savvy audience.
  Make it sound cool, avoid complex words so it doesn't sound like AI.""",
  expected_output="Full blog post of at least 4 paragraphs",
  agent=writer
)

# Instantiate your crew with a sequential process
crew = Crew(
  agents=[researcher, writer],
  tasks=[task1, task2],
  verbose=True,
  process=Process.sequential
)

# Get your crew to work!
result = crew.kickoff()

print("######################")
print(result)

📌 Note: Before running this code, ensure that the API key of the specific LLM you are choosing is set as an env variable. In this example, since OpenAI is being used, set OPENAI_API_KEY with your working API key. Additionally, for this specific example, you need to create a Serper account, generate an API key, and set it as the environment variable SERPER_API_KEY.

View Traces, Logs, and Metrics in SigNoz

Your Crew AI commands should now automatically emit traces, logs, and metrics.

You should be able to view traces in Signoz Cloud under the traces tab:

Crew AI Trace View

When you click on a trace in SigNoz, you'll see a detailed view of the trace, including all associated spans, along with their events and attributes.

Crew AI Detailed Trace View

You should be able to view logs in Signoz Cloud under the logs tab. You can also view logs by clicking on the “Related Logs” button in the trace view to see correlated logs:

Related logs button

Crew AI Logs View

When you click on any of these logs in SigNoz, you'll see a detailed view of the log, including attributes:

Crew AI Detailed Logs View

You should be able to see Crew AI related metrics in Signoz Cloud under the metrics tab:

Crew AI Metrics View

When you click on any of these metrics in SigNoz, you'll see a detailed view of the metric, including attributes:

Crew AI Detailed Metrics View

Dashboard

You can also check out our custom Crew AI dashboard here which provides specialized visualizations for monitoring your Crew AI usage in applications. The dashboard includes pre-built charts specifically tailored for Crew AI usage, along with import instructions to get started quickly.

Crew AI Dashboard Template

Crew AI Observability & Monitoring with OpenTelemetry

Crew AI Observability & Monitoring with OpenTelemetry

Overview

Prerequisites

Monitoring Crew AI

View Traces, Logs, and Metrics in SigNoz

Dashboard

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