Cohere Monitoring & Observability with OpenTelemetry

Cohere has released a no-code OpenTelemetry instrumentation package for monitoring its AI APIs, enabling developers to trace Chat, Embed, and Rerank requests end-to-end in SigNoz without modifying application code. The integration captures LLM-specific attributes like model name and token usage, helping teams improve reliability and set alerts on latency and errors.

What is Cohere Monitoring? Cohere monitoring gives you real-time visibility into your AI applications by collecting traces using OpenTelemetry https://opentelemetry.io/ . This guide shows you how to instrument a Python application that calls Cohere's Chat, Embed, and Rerank APIs and export its traces to SigNoz, without adding any OpenTelemetry code to your application. With full Cohere observability in SigNoz, you can trace every Cohere request end to end, correlate LLM spans carrying gen ai. attributes such as model name and token usage, set alerts on latency and errors, and continuously improve the reliability of your Cohere applications. Prerequisites - A SigNoz Cloud account https://signoz.io/teams/ with an active ingestion key or Self Hosted SigNoz instance https://signoz.io/docs/install/self-host/ - Python 3.10 or later - A Cohere API key https://dashboard.cohere.com/api-keys - The Cohere Python SDK in your application environment Monitor Cohere with OpenTelemetry The instrumentation is no-code: the opentelemetry-instrument launcher discovers the installed opentelemetry-instrumentation-cohere package and instruments the Cohere SDK at process startup, so you don't add any OpenTelemetry code to your application. For more details, refer to the Cohere OpenTelemetry instrumentor https://github.com/traceloop/openllmetry/tree/main/packages/opentelemetry-instrumentation-cohere . Step 1: Install the dependencies Create a virtual environment and install the Cohere SDK, the OpenTelemetry distribution, the OTLP exporter, and the Cohere instrumentor: python3 -m venv .venv .venv/bin/python -m pip install --upgrade pip .venv/bin/python -m pip install \ cohere \ opentelemetry-distro \ opentelemetry-exporter-otlp \ opentelemetry-instrumentation-cohere Then install any remaining instrumentation for your application's other dependencies: .venv/bin/opentelemetry-bootstrap --action=install The Cohere package must be installed explicitly. The bootstrap command does not add it for you. Step 2: Configure the OpenTelemetry export Set these environment variables through your deployment secret manager or a local .env file: COHERE API KEY=<your-cohere-api-key OTEL RESOURCE ATTRIBUTES=service.name=cohere-otel,service.version=1.0.0 OTEL EXPORTER OTLP ENDPOINT=https://ingest.<region .signoz.cloud:443 OTEL EXPORTER OTLP HEADERS=signoz-ingestion-key=<your-ingestion-key OTEL EXPORTER OTLP PROTOCOL=http/protobuf OTEL TRACES EXPORTER=otlp OTEL METRICS EXPORTER=none OTEL LOGS EXPORTER=none TRACELOOP TRACE CONTENT=false <region : Your SigNoz Cloud region https://signoz.io/docs/ingestion/signoz-cloud/overview/ endpoint <your-ingestion-key : Your SigNoz ingestion key https://signoz.io/docs/ingestion/signoz-cloud/keys/ <your-cohere-api-key : Your Cohere API key. OTEL METRICS EXPORTER=none avoids generic HTTP-client metric volume. Set it to otlp only when those metrics are intentionally required. TRACELOOP TRACE CONTENT=false is recommended in production. The Cohere instrumentor otherwise records prompts, completions, and embeddings in span attributes, which may contain sensitive data. Step 3: Start your application with instrumentation Prefix your normal Python command with opentelemetry-instrument : .venv/bin/opentelemetry-instrument .venv/bin/python app.py For a web service, preserve its normal command: .venv/bin/opentelemetry-instrument .venv/bin/uvicorn myapp:app No CohereInstrumentor .instrument call is needed in your application code. Once running, each Cohere Chat, Embed, or Rerank request produces LLM-aware spans that carry model, operation, duration, and available token-usage information. Cohere makes API calls only when your code invokes it, so a request must actually run before data appears in SigNoz. View Cohere Traces in SigNoz Once configured, your Cohere application automatically emits traces for every Chat, Embed, and Rerank request. Traces are available in SigNoz under the Traces tab: When you click on a trace in SigNoz, you'll see a detailed view of the trace, including all associated spans, along with their events and attributes. No-code instrumentation does not know application-specific context such as a prompt-template version, retrieval quality, or tenant. Add manual parent spans later only when that context is required. Cohere Observability Dashboard You can also check out our custom Cohere dashboard https://signoz.io/docs/dashboards/dashboard-templates/cohere-dashboard/ which provides specialized visualizations for monitoring your Cohere usage. The dashboard includes pre-built charts specifically tailored for LLM usage, along with import instructions to get started quickly. Troubleshooting Cohere Observability Troubleshooting Cohere Observability troubleshooting-cohere-observability No traces in SigNoz - Confirm a Cohere request actually ran. Cohere emits spans only when your code calls it. - Verify opentelemetry-instrumentation-cohere is installed in the same environment you run the app from. The bootstrap command does not add it for you. - Check that the region in OTEL EXPORTER OTLP ENDPOINT matches your SigNoz account. - OpenTelemetry batches data before sending, so wait 10-30 seconds after making a request. Confirm the instrumentor is working Temporarily set OTEL TRACES EXPORTER=console and rerun the process. A Cohere span printed to stdout confirms the instrumentor is loaded. Then re-check the SigNoz endpoint, region, and ingestion key. The Cohere call still requires a valid COHERE API KEY . Auth errors 401 / 403 Re-check the ingestion key in OTEL EXPORTER OTLP HEADERS=signoz-ingestion-key=<key . It must be the exact key from your SigNoz Ingestion Settings, with no extra spaces or quotes. Setup OpenTelemetry Collector Optional Setup OpenTelemetry Collector Optional setup-opentelemetry-collector-optional What is the OpenTelemetry Collector? Think of the OTel Collector as a middleman between your app and SigNoz. Instead of your application sending data directly to SigNoz, it sends everything to the Collector first, which then forwards it along. Why use it? Cleaning up data - Filter out noisy traces you don't care about, or remove sensitive info before it leaves your servers. Keeping your app lightweight - Let the Collector handle batching, retries, and compression instead of your application code. Adding context automatically - The Collector can tag your data with useful info like which Kubernetes pod or cloud region it came from. Future flexibility - Want to send data to multiple backends later? The Collector makes that easy without changing your app. See Switch from direct export to Collector https://signoz.io/docs/opentelemetry-collection-agents/opentelemetry-collector/switch-to-collector/ for step-by-step instructions to convert your setup. For more details, see Why use the OpenTelemetry Collector? https://signoz.io/docs/opentelemetry-collection-agents/opentelemetry-collector/why-to-use-collector/ and the Collector configuration guide https://signoz.io/docs/opentelemetry-collection-agents/opentelemetry-collector/configuration/ . Additional resources: - Set up alerts https://signoz.io/docs/alerts/ for high latency or error rates - Learn more about querying traces https://signoz.io/docs/userguide/traces/ - Explore log correlation https://signoz.io/docs/userguide/logs query builder/