AI Observability reads these attributes from your spans. A panel stays empty until your spans carry the attributes that it uses. Most names come from the OpenTelemetry GenAI semantic conventions. If your instrumentation uses other names, map them in Attribute Mapping.
Span attributes
| Attribute | Used by |
|---|---|
gen_ai.request.model | All LLM panels and the model filter. SigNoz counts a span with this attribute as an LLM call. |
gen_ai.provider.name | Cost by provider and the provider filter. |
gen_ai.usage.input_tokens, gen_ai.usage.output_tokens | Token panels and cost. |
gen_ai.usage.cache_read.input_tokens, gen_ai.usage.cache_creation.input_tokens | Cache token panels, cache cost, and Prompt cache hit ratio. |
gen_ai.server.ttft | TTFT (p95) and Time to first token. Streaming instrumentations, such as OpenLIT, send this attribute in seconds. |
gen_ai.response.finish_reasons | Finish reasons. |
gen_ai.tool.name | All Tool calls panels. SigNoz counts a span with this attribute as a tool call. |
gen_ai.agent.name | Agent spans for the Per-trace usage panels. |
An AI trace is a trace with at least one LLM, tool, or agent span. Error panels use the error status of the span, not an attribute.
Resource attributes
| Attribute | Used by |
|---|---|
deployment.environment | The environment filter. |
service.name | The service_name filter and Cost by service. |
Tool spans do not carry a model. As a result, the model and provider filters do not affect the Tool calls panels or Calls per AI trace.
Cost attributes
You do not send cost. When SigNoz receives a span, it calculates cost from the token counts and the price of the model in Model pricing. SigNoz writes the total to signoz.gen_ai.usage.tokens.cost, and one cost attribute for each token type:
signoz.gen_ai.usage.input_tokens.costsignoz.gen_ai.usage.output_tokens.costsignoz.gen_ai.usage.cache_read.input_tokens.costsignoz.gen_ai.usage.cache_write.input_tokens.cost
Next steps
- AI Observability overview: see cost, tokens, latency, and tool calls on one dashboard.
- Attribute Mapping: map other attribute names to the GenAI names.
- LLM Observability integrations: instrument OpenAI, Anthropic, LiteLLM, CrewAI, and other frameworks.
Get Help
If you need help with the steps in this topic, please reach out to us on SigNoz Community Slack. If you are a SigNoz Cloud user, please use in product chat support located at the bottom right corner of your SigNoz instance or contact us at cloud-support@signoz.io.
