Implementation:Guardrails ai Guardrails Settings OpenTelemetry

Knowledge Sources	Guardrails OpenTelemetry Python
Domains	Observability, Monitoring
Last Updated	2026-02-14 00:00 GMT

Overview

Concrete configuration classes for managing server mode and OpenTelemetry tracing provided by the guardrails package.

Description

This is a Wrapper Doc covering the Settings singleton and OpenTelemetry integration. The Settings singleton (thread-safe, lazily initialized) provides use_server for enabling client-server mode and disable_tracing for controlling telemetry. The guardrails/telemetry/ module provides trace decorators and span management that integrate with the OpenTelemetry SDK.

Usage

Import the settings singleton to configure server mode and tracing. Set environment variables for OTLP export configuration.

Code Reference

Source Location

Repository: guardrails
Files:
- guardrails/settings.py (L1-50)
- guardrails/telemetry/__init__.py (L1-38)

Signature

class Settings:
    """Thread-safe singleton for global configuration."""
    use_server: Optional[bool]     # Route Guard calls to server
    disable_tracing: Optional[bool] # Disable OpenTelemetry tracing

    @property
    def rc(self) -> RC:
        """Access the .guardrailsrc configuration."""
        ...

Import

from guardrails.settings import settings

# Settings is a singleton - access directly
settings.use_server = True
settings.disable_tracing = False

I/O Contract

Inputs

Name	Type	Required	Description
settings.use_server	Optional[bool]	No	Enable server mode for Guard calls
settings.disable_tracing	Optional[bool]	No	Disable OpenTelemetry tracing
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT	Env Var	No	OTLP exporter endpoint URL
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL	Env Var	No	OTLP protocol (grpc or http/protobuf)

Outputs

Name	Type	Description
Traces	OpenTelemetry Spans	Guard execution, validation, and LLM call traces
Settings state	Singleton	Global configuration accessible throughout the framework

Usage Examples

Configure Tracing

import os
from guardrails.settings import settings

# Enable tracing to Jaeger
os.environ["OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT"] = "http://localhost:4317"
os.environ["OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_PROTOCOL"] = "grpc"

# Ensure tracing is enabled
settings.disable_tracing = False

Configure Server Mode

from guardrails.settings import settings

# Route all Guard calls to a server
settings.use_server = True
os.environ["GUARDRAILS_BASE_URL"] = "http://guardrails-server:8000"

Disable Tracing

from guardrails.settings import settings
settings.disable_tracing = True

Related Pages

Implements Principle

Principle:Guardrails_ai_Guardrails_Observability_Configuration

Requires Environment

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