Exa (tracing)

Exa  provides search, contents, grounded-answer, tool, and Agent APIs. Respan’s native Exa instrumentations turn those SDK calls into connected OpenTelemetry spans with provider-neutral names and canonical Respan metadata.

The Python package requires Python >=3.11,<3.14, supports exa-py>=2.20.0,<3.0.0, and is tested with exa-py==2.20.0. The JavaScript package requires Node.js 18 or newer, supports exa-js>=2.19.0 <3.0.0, and is tested with the npm-stable exa-js@2.19.0.

Paste this into your coding agent:

Help me set up Respan tracing with the Exa integration.
Follow https://www.respan.ai/docs/integrations/exa.md

Setup

pip install respan-ai respan-instrumentation-exa "exa-py>=2.20,<3"

export RESPAN_API_KEY="YOUR_RESPAN_API_KEY"
export EXA_API_KEY="YOUR_EXA_API_KEY"

# Optional: override the Respan API base URL.
export RESPAN_BASE_URL="https://api.respan.ai/api"

import os

from exa_py import Exa
from respan import Respan
from respan_instrumentation_exa import ExaInstrumentor

respan = Respan(
    api_key=os.environ["RESPAN_API_KEY"],
    base_url=os.getenv("RESPAN_BASE_URL", "https://api.respan.ai/api"),
    app_name="exa-tracing",
    instrumentations=[ExaInstrumentor()],
)

exa = Exa(api_key=os.environ["EXA_API_KEY"])

try:
    result = exa.search(
        "recent advances in retrieval",
        type="auto",
        num_results=3,
        contents={"highlights": True},
    )
    print(result.results)
finally:
    respan.shutdown()

npm install @respan/respan @respan/instrumentation-exa@0.1.0 exa-js@2.19.0

export RESPAN_API_KEY="YOUR_RESPAN_API_KEY"
export EXA_API_KEY="YOUR_EXA_API_KEY"

# Optional: override the Respan API base URL.
export RESPAN_BASE_URL="https://api.respan.ai/api"

import { Exa } from "exa-js";
import { Respan } from "@respan/respan";
import { ExaInstrumentor } from "@respan/instrumentation-exa";

const respanApiKey = process.env.RESPAN_API_KEY;
const exaApiKey = process.env.EXA_API_KEY;
if (!respanApiKey || !exaApiKey) {
  throw new Error("RESPAN_API_KEY and EXA_API_KEY are required");
}

const respan = new Respan({
  apiKey: respanApiKey,
  baseURL: process.env.RESPAN_BASE_URL,
  appName: "exa-tracing",
  instrumentations: [new ExaInstrumentor()],
});

await respan.initialize();
const exa = new Exa(exaApiKey);

try {
  const result = await exa.search("recent advances in retrieval", {
    type: "auto",
    numResults: 3,
    contents: { highlights: true },
  });
  console.log(result.results);
} finally {
  await respan.shutdown();
}

Captured SDK surfaces

The integration is explicit-only: pass ExaInstrumentor in instrumentations as shown above. Exa can execute OpenAI or Anthropic tool adapters internally, so it is not enabled as direct-LLM auto-instrumentation.

Native SDK operation names, language, stream state, result counts, request IDs, resolved search type, cost, citations, and legacy Research markers are stored in the canonical respan.metadata JSON attribute. Successful and failed calls also retain their real status and error information. API keys and authorization-like fields are always redacted.

Streaming lifecycle

Streaming spans end when the iterator is exhausted, iteration raises an error, or the iterator is explicitly closed. JavaScript early exit from a for await loop calls the wrapped iterator’s return() and closes the span. Python exposes the SDK’s close behavior through the wrapped iterator, including the synchronous close() method on exa-py 2.20 async stream response objects.

If an application abandons a stream without exhausting or closing it, the instrumentation cannot record an exact completion timestamp. Always exhaust the stream or close it explicitly.

Content and privacy controls

Request and response content is captured by default. Disable it per instrumentor:

ExaInstrumentor(capture_content=False)

new ExaInstrumentor({ captureContent: false })

Or disable content capture for the process:

export TRACELOOP_TRACE_CONTENT=false

With content capture disabled, query, result, prompt, completion, citation, and stream payloads are omitted. Operation, stream state, status, timing, and other non-content metadata remain available.

Limitations

• Websets, Search Monitor CRUD, and beta Agent Monitor operations are not patched; they are long-lived control-plane APIs rather than in-process AI operations.
• exa-js@2.19.0 supports core getContents(), but does not ship a tools.getContents() helper. The Python 2.20 SDK does ship tools.get_contents().
• Legacy Research remains instrumented for compatibility, but Exa recommends deep search (type="deep-reasoning") for new research flows.
• Helper calls are deduplicated against the core SDK methods they invoke; activating overlapping provider instrumentations may still add their own lower-level model spans.