Data Capture and Privacy

TraceRoot spans can contain application data. Review the defaults before tracing workloads that process personal data, credentials, or confidential content.

What is captured by default

Data	Default	How to limit it
Observed function arguments	Captured as span input	Set `capture_input=False` in Python or `captureInput: false` in TypeScript
Observed function return values	Captured as span output	Set `capture_output=False` in Python or `captureOutput: false` in TypeScript
Auto-instrumented LLM prompts and completions	Captured when the integration exposes content	Only the TypeScript Pi integrations expose a content filter (`captureContent`); other integrations do not
Tool arguments and results	Captured when the integration exposes tool I/O	Only the TypeScript Pi integrations expose a tool I/O capture option (`captureToolIo: false`); other integrations do not
Git repository and ref	Trace-level metadata when resolved	Automatically resolved even when not explicitly provided; there is no git-context opt-out. Disable tracing entirely to prevent export; see Git Context
Source file, line, and function	Added by `observe` / `@observe`	Disable tracing entirely if source location must not leave the process

Capture settings prevent the selected values from being written to spans. They do not modify what your application passes to an LLM provider or tool.

Disable input and output for one function

Python
TypeScript

from traceroot import observe

@observe(capture_input=False, capture_output=False)
def verify_password(username: str, password: str) -> bool:
    return check_credentials(username, password)

Pass the function’s arguments after it so observe can invoke it; captureInput: false keeps those arguments off the span:

import { observe } from '@traceroot-ai/traceroot';

const authenticated = await observe(
  { name: 'verify_password', captureInput: false, captureOutput: false },
  verifyPassword,
  username,
  password,
);

These flags apply only to the span created by that observe call. Auto-instrumented child calls can still capture their own inputs and outputs according to the integration’s settings.

Redact Pi content before export

The TypeScript Pi instrumentation accepts a captureContent callback. It runs before content is attached to a span and can return replacement text or undefined to omit that item.

import * as pi from '@earendil-works/pi-coding-agent';
import { TraceRoot, type ContentCaptureFn } from '@traceroot-ai/traceroot';

const EMAIL = /[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,}/gi;

const redactContent: ContentCaptureFn = (kind, value) => {
  if (kind === 'agent_input') {
    return value.text?.replace(EMAIL, '[redacted-email]');
  }

  // Do not record model inputs or response bodies.
  return undefined;
};

TraceRoot.initialize({
  instrumentModules: {
    piCodingAgent: {
      module: pi,
      config: {
        captureContent: redactContent,
        captureToolIo: false,
      },
    },
  },
});

The callback form is available in the TypeScript Pi instrumentation. The Python SDK does not currently provide an equivalent general redaction callback. For Python, disable input/output capture on observed functions and avoid placing sensitive values in metadata or manually updated span fields.

Disable tracing entirely

Set TRACEROOT_ENABLED before the SDK initializes:

TRACEROOT_ENABLED=false

The accepted values differ by SDK:

SDK	Values treated as off
Python	`false`, `0`, `no`, or `off`, case-insensitive
TypeScript	The exact lowercase string `false`

You can also pass enabled=False to Python’s initialize() or enabled: false to TraceRoot.initialize() in TypeScript.

Privacy checklist

Classify prompts, completions, function arguments, tool I/O, metadata, tags, and source paths before enabling tracing in production.
Disable capture as close as possible to the function or integration that handles sensitive data.
Never attach secrets to metadata or manual span updates.
Verify a representative exported trace in a non-production project before rollout.
Apply your organization’s retention, access-control, and data-processing requirements to the TraceRoot deployment you use.

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Data Capture and Privacy

What is captured by default

Disable input and output for one function

Redact Pi content before export

Disable tracing entirely

Privacy checklist

​What is captured by default

​Disable input and output for one function

​Redact Pi content before export

​Disable tracing entirely

​Privacy checklist

What is captured by default

Disable input and output for one function

Redact Pi content before export

Disable tracing entirely

Privacy checklist