Setup
Install the packages, then set your API key and enable LangSmith tracing.1
Install braintrust and langsmith
2
Set your API key and enable tracing
Braintrust intercepts LangSmith’s tracing pipeline, so
LANGSMITH_TRACING=true must be set for langsmith to produce the runs that Braintrust captures. The legacy LANGCHAIN_TRACING_V2=true also works. To also send runs to LangSmith, set LANGSMITH_API_KEY.Tracing
Braintrust supports two modes for intercepting LangSmith calls:- Auto-instrumentation (recommended): Run your app with
node --import braintrust/hook.mjsto patchlangsmithat startup without code changes. - Manual instrumentation: Wrap
langsmithnamespaces explicitly using Braintrust’s wrapper functions.
- Auto-instrumentation
- Manual instrumentation
Initialize Braintrust, then run your app with Braintrust’s import hook to patch The auto-instrumentation example uses plain JavaScript so
langsmith at runtime. Requires langsmith v0.3.30 or later.1
Initialize Braintrust and call LangSmith
2
Run with the import hook
node --import can run the file directly. The Braintrust APIs work the same in TypeScript projects — compile your TypeScript to JavaScript, then run the compiled file with the import hook.If you’re using a bundler, see Trace LLM calls for plugin and loader setup.
What Braintrust traces
Braintrust captures:traceable-wrapped function calls as spans, with inputs and outputsRunTreeoperations andClientAPI calls (createRun,updateRun,batchIngestRuns) as spans- Run type mapped to span type:
llmandembedding→ LLM spans,toolandretriever→ Tool spans, other run types → Task spans - Token usage (
prompt_tokens,completion_tokens,total_tokens,prompt_cached_tokens,prompt_cache_creation_tokens) time_to_first_tokenfromnew_tokenevents in run history- Model name and provider from
ls_model_nameandls_providermetadata fields - LLM settings (
temperature,top_p,max_tokens, and related fields) from run metadata - Tags and errors
LangChain runs (identified by
serialized.lc === 1) are skipped by default to avoid double-tracing when both LangChain and LangSmith instrumentation are active.