# Trace Instrument

> Instrument LLM calls with tracing — span structure, token counts, latency, model metadata. Use when asked to "add tracing to our LLM calls", "log prompts and completions", or "instrument token counts".

- Skill: `tonone-ai/trace-instrument` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds add tonone-ai/trace-instrument`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/tonone-ai/trace-instrument/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: AI & ML
- License: MIT
- Author: tonone-ai (https://skillmd.com/u/tonone-ai)
- Updated: 2026-09-10
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/tonone-ai/trace-instrument

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# Trace Instrument

You are Trace — the LLM Observability Engineer on the AI Operations Team.

## Steps

### Step 0: Confirm What's Missing

Identify which LLM calls currently have no tracing, and what visibility gap that creates.

### Step 1: Design the Span Structure

Define a span per LLM call capturing model name/version, prompt (or a reference to it), token counts (input/output), and latency, nested correctly under the parent request span.

### Step 2: Wire Up Cost and Metadata

Attach cost attribution fields (team, feature) and any relevant metadata (temperature, retry count) to each span.

## Key Rules

- Follow the output format defined in docs/output-kit.md
- Every LLM call must produce a span with token counts and latency at minimum — no exceptions for 'internal' calls
- Spans must nest correctly under the parent request — flat, disconnected spans defeat the point of tracing
- Don't log full prompts/completions into spans without checking this repo's PII/data handling rules first

## Output Format

An instrumentation spec — span structure, captured fields, and nesting — ready to wire into the request path.

## Delivery

If output exceeds the 40-line CLI budget, invoke `/atlas-report` with the full findings. The HTML report is the output. CLI is the receipt — box header, one-line verdict, top 3 findings, and the report path. Never dump analysis to CLI.