LiveKit docs › Test & Evaluate › Observability › Overview

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# Observability overview

> An overview of observability features for LiveKit Agents.

## Overview

Monitor and analyze agent behavior with comprehensive observability tools. Use built-in LiveKit Cloud insights to view transcripts, traces, logs, and audio recordings, or collect custom data with data hooks for integration with external systems.

> ℹ️ **Only available in LiveKit Cloud**
> 
> Agent observability is only available for LiveKit Cloud projects. It works for agents deployed to LiveKit Cloud and for self-hosted agents that connect to LiveKit Cloud media servers. It doesn't work with self-hosted media servers or entirely self-hosted deployments.

Where this data is stored depends on whether LiveKit Cloud collects it or your own code does. To learn more, see [Data residency](https://docs.livekit.io/testing/observability/data-residency.md).

## Observability components

Monitor agent sessions, collect metrics, and analyze behavior with these observability tools.

| Component | Description | Use cases |
| **Agent insights** | Built-in observability stack in LiveKit Cloud with transcripts, traces, logs, and audio recordings in a unified timeline for each agent session. | Viewing session transcripts, analyzing agent behavior, and debugging issues. |
| **PII redaction** | Remove personally identifiable information from session transcripts, audio, and telemetry before it's stored in LiveKit Cloud. | Reducing exposure of sensitive data in stored session recordings. |
| **Data hooks** | Collect session transcripts, reports, and metrics within the LiveKit Agents SDK for custom logging and integration with external systems. | Custom data collection, integration with external observability tools, and exporting data to your own systems. |
| **OpenTelemetry traces** | Export the OpenTelemetry traces from each session to any compatible backend, such as [Langfuse](https://langfuse.com/), using the LiveKit Agents SDK. | Tracing agent behavior in third-party LLM observability tools. |
| **Record audio and video** | Capture session audio and video with LiveKit Egress and write the files to your own storage provider. | Recording video, or keeping media outside LiveKit Cloud. |
| **Data residency** | Where LiveKit Cloud stores the data it records, and where the data you collect yourself is stored. | Meeting regional storage requirements. |

Every component in this table provides information about a conversation: what the agent said, whether a tool call succeeded, or how the session performed.

Runtime logs provide information about the service running the conversation instead: whether a process crashed, what a build produced, or whether log lines reach your monitoring provider. This data belongs to the deployment rather than the session. To learn more, see the [Agent deployment overview](https://docs.livekit.io/deploy/agents.md).

## In this section

- **[Agent insights](https://docs.livekit.io/testing/observability/insights.md)**: View transcripts, traces, logs, and audio recordings in LiveKit Cloud.

- **[Build your own observability](https://docs.livekit.io/testing/observability/build.md)**: Collect session data with the Agents SDK or LiveKit Egress and send it to systems you run.

- **[Data hooks](https://docs.livekit.io/testing/observability/data.md)**: Collect metrics, session reports, and recordings within the Agents SDK.

- **[OpenTelemetry traces](https://docs.livekit.io/testing/observability/tracing.md)**: Export session traces to any OpenTelemetry-compatible backend.

- **[Record audio and video](https://docs.livekit.io/testing/observability/recording.md)**: Capture session audio and video to your own storage with LiveKit Egress.

- **[Data residency](https://docs.livekit.io/testing/observability/data-residency.md)**: Where agent observability data is stored, and what you control.

- **[PII redaction](https://docs.livekit.io/testing/observability/pii-redaction.md)**: Redact personally identifiable information from stored agent observability data.

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This document was rendered at 2026-10-07T16:27:00.749Z.
For the latest version of this document, see [https://docs.livekit.io/testing/observability.md](https://docs.livekit.io/testing/observability.md).

To explore all LiveKit documentation, see [llms.txt](https://docs.livekit.io/llms.txt).