Observability for Google Agent Development Kit (Python) with Opik
Observability for Google Agent Development Kit (Python) with Opik
Observability for Google Agent Development Kit (Python) with Opik
In Opik 2.0, datasets and experiments are project-scoped. Make sure to specify a project_name when creating datasets and running experiments so they are associated with the correct project.
Agent Development Kit (ADK) is a flexible and modular framework for developing and deploying AI agents. ADK can be used with popular LLMs and open-source generative AI tools and is designed with a focus on tight integration with the Google ecosystem and Gemini models. ADK makes it easy to get started with simple agents powered by Gemini models and Google AI tools while providing the control and structure needed for more complex agent architectures and orchestration.
In this guide, we will showcase how to integrate Opik with Google ADK so that all the ADK calls are logged as traces in Opik. We’ll cover three key integration patterns:
track_adk_agent_recursive for effortless instrumentationComet provides a hosted version of the Opik platform, simply create an account and grab your API Key.
You can also run the Opik platform locally, see the installation guide for more information.
Opik provides comprehensive integration with ADK, automatically logging traces for all agent executions, tool calls, and LLM interactions with detailed cost tracking and error monitoring.
track_adk_agent_recursive for automatic tracing of entire agent hierarchies@opik.track decorator for hybrid tracing approachesFirst, ensure you have both opik and google-adk installed:
Configure the Opik Python SDK for your deployment type. See the Python SDK Configuration guide for detailed instructions on:
opik configureopik.configure()In order to configure Google ADK, you will need to have your LLM provider API key. For this example, we’ll use OpenAI. You can find or create your OpenAI API Key in this page.
You can set it as an environment variable:
Or set it programmatically:
The recommended way to track ADK agents is using track_adk_agent_recursive and OpikTracer, which automatically instruments your entire agent hierarchy with a single function call. This approach is ideal for both single agents and complex multi-agent setups:
Each agent execution will now be automatically logged to the Opik platform with detailed trace information:

This approach automatically handles:
For a fine-grained control over which callbacks to instrument, you can manually configure the OpikTracer callbacks. This approach gives you explicit control but requires more setup code:
For most use cases, we recommend using track_adk_agent_recursive (shown in Example 1) as it requires less code and automatically handles complex agent hierarchies.
This example demonstrates a complex multi-agent setup where we have specialized agents for different tasks. Using track_adk_agent_recursive, you can instrument the entire hierarchy with a single function call:
The trace can now be viewed in the UI, showing the complete hierarchy:

The track_adk_agent_recursive approach is particularly powerful for:
By calling track_adk_agent_recursive once on the top-level agent, all child agents and their operations are automatically instrumented without any additional code
Opik automatically tracks token usage and cost for all LLM calls during the agent execution, not only for the Gemini LLMs, but including the models accessed via LiteLLM.
View the complete list of supported models and providers on the Supported Models page.
Opik automatically generates visual representations of your agent workflows using Mermaid diagrams. The graph shows:
The graph is automatically computed and stored with each trace, providing a clear visual understanding of your agent’s execution flow:
For weather time agent the graph will look like that:

For more complex agent architectures displaying a graph may be even more beneficial:

This advanced example shows how to combine Opik’s @opik.track decorator with ADK’s callback system. This is powerful when you have complex multi-step tools that perform their own internal operations that you want to trace separately, while still maintaining the overall agent trace context.
You can use track_adk_agent_recursive together with @opik.track decorators on your tool functions for maximum visibility:
The trace can now be viewed in the UI:

The OpikTracer is fully compatible with the @track decorator, allowing you to create hybrid tracing approaches that combine ADK agent tracking with custom function tracing.
You can both invoke your agent from inside another tracked function and call tracked functions inside your tool functions, all the spans and traces parent-child relationships will be preserved!
The Opik integration automatically handles ADK sessions and maps them to Opik threads for conversational applications:
The integration automatically:
You can view your session as a whole conversation and easily navigate to any specific trace you need.

The OpikTracer provides comprehensive error tracking and monitoring:
Error information is automatically logged to spans and traces, making it easy to debug issues in production:

When using Runner.run_async, make sure to process all events completely, even after finding the final response (when event.is_final_response() is True). If you exit the loop too early, OpikTracer won’t log the final response and your trace will be incomplete. Don’t use code that stops processing events prematurely:
There is an upstream discussion about how to best solve this source of confusion: https://github.com/google/adk-python/issues/1695.
Our team tried to address those issues and make the integration as robust as possible. If you are facing similar
problems, the first thing we recommend is to update both opik and google-adk to the latest versions. We are
actively working on improving this integration, so with the most recent versions you’ll most likely get the best UX!.
The OpikTracer object has a flush method that ensures all traces are logged to the Opik platform before you exit a script:
The OpikTracer can be used together with the OPIK prompts library
to easily access your existing prompts or create new ones, and then associate them with traces or spans within an ADK agent flow.