Axiom AI SDK provides flexible redaction policies to control what data is captured in OpenTelemetry spans. This allows you to balance observability needs with privacy and compliance requirements.

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:

• AxiomDefault

• OpenTelemetryDefault

AxiomDefault policy

By default, Axiom AI SDK captures all data for maximum observability. What gets captured:

• Full prompt text and AI responses in chat spans
• Complete tool arguments and return values on tool spans
• All standard OpenTelemetry attributes (model name, token usage, etc.)

Capturing full message content increases span size and storage costs.

When to use:

• You need full visibility into AI interactions
• Data privacy isn’t a concern
• Debugging complex AI workflows

OpenTelemetryDefault policy

The OpenTelemetry default policy excludes sensitive content. What gets captured:

• Model metadata (name, provider, version)
• Token usage and performance metrics
• Error information and status codes

What gets excluded:

• Prompt text and AI responses
• Tool arguments and return values

When to use:

• Handling sensitive or personal data
• Compliance requirements restrict data capture
• You only need performance and error metrics

What gets captured

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

• AxiomDefault

• OpenTelemetryDefault

• Chat spans

• Tool spans

{
  "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\"}"
}

• Chat spans

• Tool spans

{
  "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
}

Message content (gen_ai.input.messages and gen_ai.output.messages) is excluded for privacy.

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

Tool arguments and results (gen_ai.tool.arguments and gen_ai.tool.message) are excluded for privacy.

Global configuration

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

Full data capture

Privacy-first

import { trace } from '@opentelemetry/api';
import { initAxiomAI, RedactionPolicy } from 'axiom/ai';

const tracer = trace.getTracer("my-tracer");

initAxiomAI({ tracer, redactionPolicy: RedactionPolicy.AxiomDefault });

In Quickstart, initAxiomAI is called in your instrumentation file (/src/instrumentation.ts).

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'

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

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: