Jido Integration Guide

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AgentObs provides a drop-in tracer for Jido that automatically instruments composer events with OpenTelemetry spans and OpenInference semantic conventions.

Table of Contents

Overview

If you're using Jido's composer to orchestrate agent, LLM, and tool calls, AgentObs.JidoTracer bridges those telemetry events into AgentObs. This gives you full observability in Arize Phoenix (or any OpenTelemetry backend) with zero manual instrumentation of your Jido workflows.

Key benefits:

  • Zero-code instrumentation for Jido composer workflows
  • Automatic parent-child span nesting
  • OpenInference semantic conventions for rich visualization in Phoenix
  • Graceful error handling (never crashes your application)

Installation

Add both dependencies to mix.exs:

def deps do
  [
    {:agent_obs, "~> 0.1.3"},
    {:jido, "~> 2.0"}
  ]
end

jido is an optional dependency of agent_obs. The AgentObs.JidoTracer module is only available when Jido is installed.

Configuration

Point Jido's observability config at the tracer:

# config/config.exs
config :jido, :observability,
  tracer: AgentObs.JidoTracer

# Also configure AgentObs handlers as usual
config :agent_obs,
  enabled: true,
  handlers: [AgentObs.Handlers.Phoenix]

Make sure your OpenTelemetry exporter is configured to send spans to your backend:

# config/runtime.exs
config :opentelemetry,
  span_processor: :batch,
  resource: [service: [name: "my_jido_app"]]

config :opentelemetry_exporter,
  otlp_protocol: :http_protobuf,
  otlp_endpoint: System.get_env("ARIZE_PHOENIX_OTLP_ENDPOINT", "http://localhost:6006")

That's it. All Jido composer events will now appear as traced spans.

How It Works

AgentObs.JidoTracer implements the Jido.Observe.Tracer behaviour, which Jido calls automatically during composer execution:

  1. span_start/2 - Called when a composer event begins. Creates an OpenTelemetry span with attributes translated to OpenInference conventions.
  2. span_stop/2 - Called when the event completes. Sets result attributes and ends the span.
  3. span_exception/4 - Called on errors. Records the exception on the span and sets error status.

Parent-child relationships are maintained automatically through OpenTelemetry context propagation, so nested agent > LLM > tool calls appear correctly in trace visualizers.

Event Mapping

Jido event prefixes are classified into AgentObs event types:

Jido Event PrefixAgentObs TypeSpan Name Example
[:jido, :composer, :agent, ...]:agent"weather_assistant"
[:jido, :composer, :llm, ...]:llm"gpt-4o #2"
[:jido, :composer, :tool, ...]:tool"get_weather"
[:jido, :composer, :iteration, ...]:chain"iteration 3"
Any other prefix:agent"agent"

Metadata Translation

The tracer automatically maps Jido metadata fields to AgentObs format:

Agent Events

Jido FieldAgentObs FieldNotes
:query:inputFalls back to :input
:name:nameFalls back to :agent_module
:model:modelOptional
:result:outputOn stop, falls back to :output

LLM Events

Jido FieldAgentObs FieldNotes
:model:modelDefaults to "unknown"
:input_messages:input_messagesPreferred
:conversation:input_messagesNormalized to %{role, content} maps
:iteration:iterationAppended to span name
:tokens:tokensOn stop

Tool Events

Jido FieldAgentObs FieldNotes
:tool_name:nameFalls back to :node_name, :name
:arguments:argumentsFalls back to :params
:result:resultOn stop, falls back to :output

Viewing Traces

Start a local Arize Phoenix instance:

docker run -p 6006:6006 -p 4317:4317 arizephoenix/phoenix:latest

Navigate to http://localhost:6006 to see your Jido workflows as nested traces:

weather_assistant (agent)
  ├── gpt-4o #1 (llm)
  ├── get_weather (tool)
  └── gpt-4o #2 (llm)

Advanced Usage

Combining with Manual Instrumentation

You can use AgentObs.JidoTracer for Jido workflows while using the AgentObs.trace_* helpers for non-Jido code in the same application:

def my_workflow(query) do
  # Manual instrumentation for the outer operation
  AgentObs.trace_agent("my_workflow", %{input: query}, fn ->
    # Jido composer is automatically traced via JidoTracer
    {:ok, result} = Jido.Composer.run(my_composer, query)
    {:ok, result}
  end)
end

Error Handling

The tracer is designed to never crash your application. If span creation or attribute translation fails, a warning is logged and execution continues normally:

[warning] AgentObs.JidoTracer span_start failed: %RuntimeError{message: "..."}

Next Steps