Observing a Workflow with Phoenix#

This guide provides a step-by-step process to enable observability in a NeMo Agent toolkit workflow using Phoenix for tracing and logging. By the end of this guide, you will have:

  • Configured telemetry in your workflow.

  • Started the Phoenix server locally.

  • Ability to view traces in the Phoenix UI.

Step 1: Install the Phoenix Subpackage and Phoenix Server#

Install the phoenix dependencies to enable tracing capabilities:

uv pip install -e '.[phoenix]'

Then install the Phoenix server:

uv pip install arize-phoenix

Step 2: Start the Phoenix Server#

Run the following command to start Phoenix server locally:

phoenix serve

Phoenix should now be accessible at http://0.0.0.0:6006.

Step 3: Modify Workflow Configuration#

Update your workflow configuration file to include the telemetry settings.

Example configuration:

general:
  telemetry:
    tracing:
      phoenix:
        _type: phoenix
        endpoint: http://localhost:6006/v1/traces
        project: simple_calculator

This setup enables tracing through Phoenix at http://localhost:6006/v1/traces, with traces grouped into the simple_calculator project.

Step 4: Run Your Workflow#

From the root directory of the NeMo Agent toolkit library, install dependencies and run the pre-configured simple_calculator_observability example.

Example:

# Install the workflow and plugins
uv pip install -e examples/observability/simple_calculator_observability/

# Run the workflow with Phoenix telemetry settings
nat run --config_file examples/observability/simple_calculator_observability/configs/config-phoenix.yml --input "What is 1*2?"

As the workflow runs, telemetry data will start showing up in Phoenix.

Step 5: View Traces Data in Phoenix#

  • Open your browser and navigate to http://0.0.0.0:6006.

  • Locate your workflow traces under your project name in projects.

  • Inspect function execution details, latency, total tokens, request timelines and other info under Info and Attributes tab of an individual trace.

Debugging#

For more Arize-Phoenix details, view the documentation here.