Redaction policies

This page explains how to use redaction policies in the Axiom AI SDK to control what data is captured in AI spans

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:

Policy	What gets captured	What gets excluded	When to use
AxiomDefault	Full data	–	Full observability
OpenTelemetryDefault	Model metadata, token usage, error info	Prompt text, AI responses, tool args and results	Privacy-first

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

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

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 defaultpolicy:

AxiomDefault

Chat 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
}

Tool spans

{
  "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\"}"
}

OpenTelemetryDefault

Chat 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.

Tool spans

{
  "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

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:

Default policy	captureMessageContent	mirrorToolPayloadOnToolSpan
AxiomDefault	'full'	true
OpenTelemetryDefault	'off'	false

Related documentation

Axiom AI SDK instrumentation

Learn how to instrument your AI applications with Axiom AI SDK

OpenTelemetry attributes

Understand the OpenTelemetry attributes captured by Axiom AI SDK