Redaction policies

Built-in redaction policies#

Axiom AI SDK provides two built-in redaction policies:

If you don’t specify a redaction policy, Axiom AI SDK applies AxiomDefault.

To determine which redaction policy fits your needs, see the following comparison:

What gets captured#

To determine which redaction policy fits your needs, see the following examples about what gets captured with each defaultpolicy:

{
  "gen_ai.operation.name": "chat",
  "gen_ai.request.model": "gpt-4o-mini",
  "gen_ai.input.messages": "[{\"role\":\"user\",\"content\":[{\"type\":\"text\",\"text\":\"Hello, how are you?\"}]}]",
  "gen_ai.output.messages": "[{\"role\":\"assistant\",\"content\":\"I'm doing well, thank you for asking!\"}]",
  "gen_ai.usage.input_tokens": 12,
  "gen_ai.usage.output_tokens": 15,
  "gen_ai.usage.total_tokens": 27
}

{
  "gen_ai.tool.name": "weather_lookup",
  "gen_ai.tool.description": "Get current weather for a location",
  "gen_ai.tool.arguments": "{\"location\":\"San Francisco\",\"units\":\"celsius\"}",
  "gen_ai.tool.message": "{\"temperature\":18,\"condition\":\"partly cloudy\"}"
}

{
  "gen_ai.operation.name": "chat",
  "gen_ai.request.model": "gpt-4o-mini",
  "gen_ai.usage.input_tokens": 12,
  "gen_ai.usage.output_tokens": 15,
  "gen_ai.usage.total_tokens": 27
}

{
  "gen_ai.tool.name": "weather_lookup",
  "gen_ai.tool.description": "Get current weather for a location"
}

Global configuration#

Set a default redaction policy for your entire app using initAxiomAI:

import { trace } from '@opentelemetry/api';
import { initAxiomAI, RedactionPolicy } from 'axiom/ai';
 
const tracer = trace.getTracer("my-tracer");
 
initAxiomAI({ tracer, redactionPolicy: RedactionPolicy.AxiomDefault });

import { trace } from '@opentelemetry/api';
import { initAxiomAI, RedactionPolicy } from 'axiom/ai';
 
const tracer = trace.getTracer("my-tracer");
 
initAxiomAI({ tracer, redactionPolicy: RedactionPolicy.OpenTelemetryDefault });

Per-operation override#

You can configure different policies for each operation. Axiom resolves redaction policies in the following order (from highest to lowest precedence):

1. Per-operation policy
2. Global policy
3. Default policy

Override the global or default policy for specific operations by passing a redactionPolicy to withSpan:

import { withSpan, RedactionPolicy } from 'axiom/ai';
import { generateText } from 'ai';
 
const result = await withSpan(
  { capability: 'customer_support', step: 'handle_sensitive_query' },
  async (span) => {
    span.setAttribute('user.id', userId);
    return generateText({
      model: wrappedModel,
      prompt: 'Process this sensitive customer data...'
    });
  },
  { redactionPolicy: RedactionPolicy.OpenTelemetryDefault }
);

Custom redaction policies#

Create custom policies by defining an AxiomAIRedactionPolicy object:

import { trace } from '@opentelemetry/api';
import { initAxiomAI, AxiomAIRedactionPolicy } from 'axiom/ai';
 
const tracer = trace.getTracer("my-tracer");
 
// Custom policy: capture messages but not tool payloads
const customPolicy: AxiomAIRedactionPolicy = {
  captureMessageContent: 'full',
  mirrorToolPayloadOnToolSpan: false
};
 
initAxiomAI({ tracer, redactionPolicy: customPolicy });

The AxiomAIRedactionPolicy object has two properties:

• captureMessageContent ('full' | 'off', path, default 'full') — Controls whether prompt and response text is included in chat spans.

  • 'full': Include complete message content
  • 'off': Exclude all message content

• mirrorToolPayloadOnToolSpan (boolean, path, default true) — Controls whether tool arguments and results are duplicated on tool spans.

  • true: Mirror tool data for easier querying
  • false: Only capture tool metadata (name, description)

The built-in policies configure the AxiomAIRedactionPolicy object in the following way:

Related documentation#