{"type":"post","id":"claude-managed-agents-the-messages-api-and-the-094b3f","slug":"claude-managed-agents-the-messages-api-and-the-094b3f","title":"Claude Managed Agents, the Messages API, and the Claude SDK now support OpenTelemetry traces.","description":"Anthropic’s Claude Platform documentation describes OpenTelemetry tracing for Messages API requests, Claude SDK clients, and Managed Agents sessions.","retrieval_nugget":"Anthropic’s Claude Platform documentation describes OpenTelemetry tracing for Messages API requests, Claude SDK clients, and Managed Agents sessions.","published_at":"2026-10-15","updated_at":"2026-10-15","record_date":"2026-10-15","date_kind":"published_at","topics":["claude","anthropic"],"source_urls":["https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/manage-claude/opentelemetry"],"schema_version":"newruntime-agent-readable-v0.2","stable_id":"post:claude-managed-agents-the-messages-api-and-the-094b3f","status":"published","visuals":[],"editorial_provenance":{"schema_version":"newruntime-editorial-copy-v1","content_status":"source_grounded_final","final_copy_sha256":"sha256:46446cd7694365aeca29d5091720830c1fcebbb9a98c30d3400540802a9a105b","reviewed_at":"2026-10-15T04:04:59.203Z","source_evidence_count":1,"verified_claim_count":3,"site_analysis_schema_version":"newruntime-site-analysis-v1","site_object_kind":"field_note","observed_fact_count":3,"implication_count":3,"watch_condition_count":2,"related_record_count":0},"analysis":{"schema_version":"newruntime-site-analysis-v1","object_kind":"field_note","thesis":"OpenTelemetry support makes Claude request and agent activity inspectable within a team’s existing observability workflow.","observed_facts":[{"text":"Anthropic documents tracing for Messages API requests, Claude SDK clients, and Managed Agents sessions.","source_urls":["https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/manage-claude/opentelemetry"]},{"text":"The documentation says metadata-only is the default content mode and full-content mode includes prompts and responses.","source_urls":["https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/manage-claude/opentelemetry"]},{"text":"SDK and API spans can be combined in one trace, while API spans for Claude Platform on AWS are separate.","source_urls":["https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/manage-claude/opentelemetry"]}],"mechanism":"Teams configure SDK tracing, API tracing, or both and send traces to OTLP-compatible observability destinations; content mode determines whether prompts and responses are included.","why_now":"As teams operate multi-step agent sessions, debugging a failed or slow request requires visibility beyond a single model response.","implications":["Teams can correlate Claude activity with application traces.","Teams must choose whether prompt and response content enters telemetry.","SDK and API tracing have different setup paths and permission requirements."],"evidence_boundary":"The public documentation describes available capabilities and setup, not adoption, reliability improvement, or reduced debugging time.","watch_conditions":["Whether teams can preserve useful end-to-end traces while maintaining chosen content and access controls.","Whether coverage and trace correlation remain clear across SDK, API, and AWS-hosted requests."],"related_records":[],"new_branch_reason":"No prior New Runtime record was supplied that specifically tracks observability coverage and content-mode choices for hosted agent sessions."},"editor":{"role":"editor","name":"Andrey Reshetnikov","profile":"https://newruntime.com/owner-profile.md","profile_json":"https://newruntime.com/owner-profile.json","same_as":["https://www.linkedin.com/in/reshetnikov1/","https://t.me/lapetuse"]},"routes":{"html":"https://newruntime.com/posts/claude-managed-agents-the-messages-api-and-the-094b3f/","markdown":"https://newruntime.com/posts/claude-managed-agents-the-messages-api-and-the-094b3f.md","json":"https://newruntime.com/posts/claude-managed-agents-the-messages-api-and-the-094b3f.json"},"related_patterns":["runtime-observability-becomes-the-primary-engineering-focus-for-ai"],"next_reads":[{"type":"topic","path":"/topics/claude/","url":"https://newruntime.com/topics/claude/","title":"Claude","reason":"Explore the claude topic hub.","media_type":"text/html","markdown_url":"https://newruntime.com/topics/claude.md","json_url":"https://newruntime.com/topics/claude.json"},{"type":"topic","path":"/topics/anthropic/","url":"https://newruntime.com/topics/anthropic/","title":"Anthropic","reason":"Explore the anthropic topic hub.","media_type":"text/html","markdown_url":"https://newruntime.com/topics/anthropic.md","json_url":"https://newruntime.com/topics/anthropic.json"},{"type":"collection","path":"/posts/","url":"https://newruntime.com/posts/","title":"Field Notes","reason":"Open the latest editorial analysis.","media_type":"text/html","json_url":"https://newruntime.com/posts.json"},{"type":"collection","path":"/source-ledger.json","url":"https://newruntime.com/source-ledger.json","title":"Source Ledger","reason":"Inspect the public source evidence graph.","media_type":"application/json"}]}