OpenTrace: Turn noisy logs into your next best move

A developer built OpenTrace, a local-first debugging assistant that turns pasted error messages, stack traces and service logs into structured JSON reports with a summary, severity, evidence, likely cause, safe next actions and follow-up questions. When Ollama is available, the tool sends logs to a configurable local open-source model and stores no logs or request history; without Ollama it falls back to a limited heuristic clearly labeled Demo Mode. The developer deliberately kept the assistant from executing commands, arguing that separating evidence from hypotheses and surfacing limitations beats a confident-looking answer.

OpenTrace is a local-first debugging assistant for developers. A user pastes an error, stack trace, or service log and receives a structured report with a summary, severity, evidence, likely cause, safe next actions, and questions that would improve the diagnosis. Live demo: https://opentrace-ai-debugger.onrender.com https://opentrace-ai-debugger.onrender.com Source code: https://github.com/samainakhatun115-cpu/opentrace-ai-debugger https://github.com/samainakhatun115-cpu/opentrace-ai-debugger Logs are often technically detailed but operationally unclear. The final error message may hide the first useful signal, and a generic chatbot can present a guess as a fact. OpenTrace makes the distinction visible: evidence is shown separately from hypotheses, and every response includes safe next steps rather than destructive commands. When Ollama is available, OpenTrace sends the pasted log to a local Ollama-compatible open-source model and requests a strict JSON report. The server does not store logs or request history. The model name and endpoint are configurable through environment variables. If Ollama is unavailable, OpenTrace uses a deliberately limited heuristic fallback and labels the result Demo Mode . It never presents the fallback as model output. php flowchart LR A Browser -- B Node HTTP server B -- C{Ollama available?} C -- |yes| D Open-source local model C -- |no| E Clearly labelled demo heuristic D -- F Structured JSON report E -- F F -- A The most important product decision was not to make the assistant execute commands. A debugging helper should help a developer decide what to inspect next, while the developer remains responsible for validating production changes. Making evidence and limitations visible is more useful than producing a confident-looking answer. cd OpenTrace node server.js Open http://localhost:3000 http://localhost:3000 . For model-backed analysis, install Ollama and run: ollama pull llama3.2:3b Built as a new project for the Hacktoberfest Open-Source AI Challenge: Week 4. AI assistance was used during development and drafting.