Telemetry
Operational data emitted by systems for monitoring and analysis. For agents: traces, metrics (latency, cost, success rate), and logs.
Last updated: April 26, 2026
Definition
Telemetry is the umbrella term for the operational data your agent emits about itself. Three signals matter for LLM systems: traces (the structured execution record per agent run), metrics (numeric aggregates like requests-per-second, p95 latency, daily cost), and logs (free-form events for things that do not fit traces or metrics). All three flow to an observability backend (Datadog, Grafana, Honeycomb, plus an LLM-specific platform like Langfuse). Without telemetry, you cannot debug or improve your agent. With it, every problem becomes a query.
When To Use
Emit telemetry from day one of any production deployment. The cost is low; the cost of operating without it is paying for outages you cannot diagnose.
Related Terms
Building with Telemetry?
I've shipped this pattern in real production systems. If you want a second pair of eyes on your architecture, that's what I do.