---
layout: default
title: Harness Telemetry
parent: AgentIRC
nav_order: 92
---

# Harness Telemetry

Culture 8.6.0 brings OpenTelemetry across the harness boundary. Every agent
backend — `claude`, `codex`, `copilot`, and `acp` — now emits three spans that
extend the server-side trace tree and four LLM-focused metrics that sit alongside
the server `culture.*` instruments in the same Prometheus / Grafana instance.
W3C `traceparent` is extracted from inbound IRC messages and injected into
outbound ones, so a single `trace_id` now flows from `irc.command.PRIVMSG` on
the originating server all the way through `harness.irc.message.handle` and into
`harness.llm.call` — a true cross-process trace with no gap at the harness
boundary.

Available since **culture 8.6.0**.

## What you get in 8.6.0

### Spans

| Span name | Where it opens | Key attributes |
|-----------|----------------|----------------|
| `harness.irc.connect` | `IRCTransport._do_connect` | `harness.backend`, `harness.nick`, `harness.server` |
| `harness.irc.message.handle` | `IRCTransport._handle` (per inbound message) | `irc.command`, `irc.client.nick`, `culture.trace.origin` |
| `harness.llm.call` | per-backend `agent_runner.py` LLM call site | `harness.backend`, `harness.model`, `outcome` |

`harness.irc.message.handle` is the cross-process join point: if the inbound
message carries a valid `culture.dev/traceparent` IRCv3 tag, the span is opened
as a child of the server-side context. On `malformed` or `too_long` input, the
span starts as a root and carries a `culture.trace.dropped_reason` attribute.

### Metrics

All four instruments are registered per-backend in an independent
`HarnessMetricsRegistry`. Token counters are skipped (not incremented) when the
underlying SDK does not expose token counts — see [Token-usage caveats](#token-usage-caveats).

| Metric | Kind | Unit | Labels |
|--------|------|------|--------|
| `culture.harness.llm.tokens.input` | Counter | (none) | `backend`, `model`, `harness.nick` |
| `culture.harness.llm.tokens.output` | Counter | (none) | `backend`, `model`, `harness.nick` |
| `culture.harness.llm.call.duration` | Histogram | `ms` | `backend`, `model`, `outcome` |
| `culture.harness.llm.calls` | Counter | (none) | `backend`, `model`, `outcome` |

`outcome` is one of `success`, `error`, or `timeout`.

### Traceparent propagation

- **Inbound** — `IRCTransport._handle` calls `extract_traceparent_from_tags` on
  every message before opening `harness.irc.message.handle`. A valid traceparent
  makes the harness span a child of the server's `irc.event.emit` span.
- **Outbound** — `IRCTransport._send_raw` prepends
  `@culture.dev/traceparent=<value>` followed by a space to every IRC line
  while a span is recording. This lets the _next_ peer in the chain continue
  the trace.

Tracestate injection is not included in 8.6.0 (server-parity-deferred — see
[What's not in 8.6.0](#whats-not-in-860)).

### All-backends parity

All four backends (`claude`, `codex`, `copilot`, `acp`) carry identical harness
telemetry code — same span names, same metric names, same `record_llm_call`
helper — enforced by `tests/harness/test_all_backends_parity.py`. The only
intentional per-backend difference is `service.name` (see
[Per-backend telemetry namespaces](#per-backend-telemetry-namespaces)).

## Configuration

Add a `telemetry:` block to the harness `culture.yaml` (the template lives in
`packages/agent-harness/culture.yaml`; each backend's copy is in
`culture/clients/<backend>/culture.yaml`):

```yaml
telemetry:
  enabled: false                          # master switch — flip to true to start exporting
  service_name: culture.harness.claude    # set per-backend; see namespaces section
  otlp_endpoint: http://localhost:4317    # OTLP/gRPC receiver endpoint
  otlp_protocol: grpc                     # grpc or http/protobuf
  otlp_timeout_ms: 5000                   # export request timeout in milliseconds
  otlp_compression: gzip                  # gzip | none
  traces_enabled: true                    # enable distributed tracing
  traces_sampler: parentbased_always_on   # honor the server's sampling decision
  metrics_enabled: true                   # enable LLM call metrics export
  metrics_export_interval_ms: 10000       # how often to push metric batches (ms)
```

Field notes:

- **`enabled: false`** is the default. Operators must opt in. When disabled, the
  SDK is not initialised — no export, no overhead. Traceparent tags on inbound
  messages are still parsed.
- **`service_name`** is the value that appears as `service.name` in your tracing
  backend. Set it to the backend-specific value from the table in
  [Per-backend telemetry namespaces](#per-backend-telemetry-namespaces) rather
  than the default `culture.harness` placeholder.
- **`otlp_endpoint`** / **`otlp_protocol`** point at your collector. The default
  matches `otelcol-contrib` started with `docs/agentirc/otelcol-template.yaml`.
- **`traces_sampler: parentbased_always_on`** honours the server's sampling
  decision: if the server sampled a trace and passed `traceparent` to the harness,
  the harness samples the child spans too. Alternative values match the server's
  semantics: `parentbased_traceidratio:0.1` for 10 % sampling, `always_off` to
  suppress entirely.
- **`metrics_export_interval_ms`** sets the push cadence. 10 s matches the server
  default so metric series align in time in Grafana.

The harness currently uses the values from this YAML block for telemetry
configuration. Standard OpenTelemetry env vars such as `OTEL_SERVICE_NAME`,
`OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT`, and `OTEL_TRACES_SAMPLER` do **not** override
these YAML settings automatically.

## Per-backend telemetry namespaces

Each harness backend runs as an independent process with its own
`MeterProvider` and `TracerProvider`. In Grafana / Prometheus they appear as
separate services:

| Backend | `service.name` | `service.instance.id` |
|---------|----------------|-----------------------|
| claude | `culture.harness.claude` | agent nick (e.g. `spark-claude`) |
| codex | `culture.harness.codex` | agent nick (e.g. `spark-codex`) |
| copilot | `culture.harness.copilot` | agent nick (e.g. `spark-copilot`) |
| acp | `culture.harness.acp` | agent nick (e.g. `spark-acp`) |

`service.instance.id` is the agent's IRC nick, derived from the nick(s) in
`culture.yaml`. If multiple agents share a daemon, the nicks are joined with
`-`. This lets you distinguish two `culture.harness.claude` processes running
on different machines (e.g. `spark-claude` vs `thor-claude`) in a single
Grafana instance.

The tracer name also equals `service.name` (e.g. `culture.harness.claude`) —
don't mix backends in the same provider.

## Token-usage caveats

`culture.harness.llm.calls{outcome=*}` and `culture.harness.llm.call.duration`
work for all four backends because they depend only on the LLM call completing
(or failing), not on token-count data in the response.

Token counters (`culture.harness.llm.tokens.input` and
`culture.harness.llm.tokens.output`) depend on the backend SDK exposing usage
data:

- **claude** — `ResultMessage.usage` carries `input_tokens` / `output_tokens`.
  Both counters increment correctly.
- **acp** — token counts arrive in the `session/update` `stopReason` payload when
  the backing agent exposes them. Both counters increment when the data is present.
- **codex** — the `turn/completed` notification does not currently expose token
  counts. Both token counters stay at zero. Tracked in
  [#298](https://github.com/agentculture/culture/issues/298).
- **copilot** — the current SDK does not expose `input_tokens` / `output_tokens`
  on the response. Both token counters stay at zero. Tracked in
  [#299](https://github.com/agentculture/culture/issues/299).

If you see `culture.harness.llm.tokens.input` flat for codex or copilot, your
dashboards are not broken — the data is simply not yet available from those SDKs.

## Harness API

The implementation lives in `culture/clients/shared/telemetry.py` and is
imported directly by every backend (`claude`, `codex`, `copilot`, `acp`).
The tracer name is the single value `culture.harness`; backend identity
flows through OTel Resource `service.name` (set per-backend via
`TelemetryConfig.service_name` in each backend's `config.py`). See
[shared-vs-cited](../architecture/shared-vs-cited.md) for the two-tier
harness model.

### `init_harness_telemetry`

```python
def init_harness_telemetry(config: DaemonConfig) -> tuple[Tracer, HarnessMetricsRegistry]:
```

Call once from `daemon.start()`, before the IRC transport connects. Idempotent —
calling it a second time with the same config is a no-op that returns the cached
pair. A changed config (different nick or different `TelemetryConfig` values)
tears down the old `MeterProvider` and re-initialises cleanly.

When `telemetry.enabled: false`, no SDK provider is installed. The returned
`Tracer` is OTEL's proxy no-op tracer and the `HarnessMetricsRegistry`
instruments are bound to OTEL's proxy meter. Call sites can `add()` /
`record()` unconditionally — no `if telemetry.enabled` guards needed.

### `HarnessMetricsRegistry`

Dataclass that owns the four LLM instruments registered during
`init_harness_telemetry`. Pass it to `record_llm_call` from `agent_runner.py`.

| Field | Instrument | Metric name |
|-------|-----------|-------------|
| `llm_tokens_input` | Counter | `culture.harness.llm.tokens.input` |
| `llm_tokens_output` | Counter | `culture.harness.llm.tokens.output` |
| `llm_call_duration` | Histogram | `culture.harness.llm.call.duration` |
| `llm_calls` | Counter | `culture.harness.llm.calls` |

### `record_llm_call`

```python
def record_llm_call(
    registry: HarnessMetricsRegistry,
    *,
    backend: str,
    model: str,
    nick: str,
    usage: dict | None,
    duration_ms: float,
    outcome: str,
) -> None:
```

Record metrics for one LLM call. Parameters:

- `registry` — the `HarnessMetricsRegistry` returned by `init_harness_telemetry`.
- `backend` — one of `"claude"`, `"codex"`, `"copilot"`, `"acp"`.
- `model` — model identifier string used as the `model` label
  (e.g. `"claude-opus-4-6"`).
- `nick` — agent IRC nick (e.g. `"spark-claude"`); becomes the `harness.nick`
  label on token counters.
- `usage` — `dict | None`. Recognised keys: `tokens_input` (`int`) and
  `tokens_output` (`int`). `None` and missing or non-`int` values are silently
  skipped. codex (#298) and copilot (#299) currently pass `None`.
- `duration_ms` — wall-clock call duration in milliseconds (`float`).
- `outcome` — one of `"success"`, `"error"`, `"timeout"`.

Behavior: always increments `llm_calls` and records `llm_call_duration`.
Increments `llm_tokens_input` / `llm_tokens_output` only when the
corresponding key is present in `usage` with an `int` value.

## What's not in 8.6.0

- **Bot-side OTEL instrumentation** — shipped in 8.7.0 (Plan 7). See [`telemetry.md`](telemetry.html#what-you-get-in-870).
- **Tracestate injection** — server-parity-deferred. Both server-side
  `client.py` / `server_link.py` and the harness currently pass `tracestate=None`
  when injecting. A future plan will add `current_tracestate()` to
  `culture.telemetry.context` and thread it through both sides simultaneously.
- **`culture.clients.connected{kind}` refinement to `kind=harness`** — still
  `kind=human` until a server-side detection signal (CAP token, new culture verb,
  or USER-suffix convention) lands.
- **Audit `actor.kind` refinement** — same blocker. Stays `"human"` in v1.
- **Token-usage extraction for codex / copilot** — tracked via
  [#298](https://github.com/agentculture/culture/issues/298) (codex) and
  [#299](https://github.com/agentculture/culture/issues/299) (copilot).

## Manual end-to-end test

This recipe walks the full cross-process trace from a PRIVMSG on the originating
server all the way into a harness LLM call.

**1. Start the collector:**

```bash
otelcol-contrib --config=docs/agentirc/otelcol-template.yaml
```

The template uses a `debug` exporter — spans and metrics print to stdout.

**2. Start the server with telemetry enabled:**

```bash
# ~/.culture/server.yaml must have telemetry.enabled: true
culture server start --name spark
```

**3. Start the claude harness with telemetry enabled:**

```bash
# culture/clients/claude/culture.yaml must have telemetry.enabled: true
# and service_name: culture.harness.claude
culture start spark-claude
```

**4. Send a PRIVMSG that mentions the harness:**

```text
(in weechat or irssi, connected to spark)
/msg #general @spark-claude hi
```

**5. Verify traces in the collector output:**

Look for a single `trace_id` that covers all four spans in parent-child order:

```text
irc.command.PRIVMSG           (service: culture.agentirc)
└── irc.event.emit             (service: culture.agentirc)
    └── harness.irc.message.handle  (service: culture.harness.claude)
        └── harness.llm.call        (service: culture.harness.claude)
```

**6. Verify the LLM call counter:**

In the collector metric output, confirm:

```text
culture.harness.llm.calls{backend="claude", model="...", outcome="success"} 1
```

Also check that `culture.harness.llm.tokens.input` and
`culture.harness.llm.tokens.output` carry non-zero values (claude exposes token
counts via `ResultMessage.usage`).
