Strands Agents

Strands Agents is an AI agent framework developed by AWS. It has native OpenTelemetry support, making SideSeat integration seamless.

Quick Start

1. Install dependencies

   pip install strands-agents sideseat
   # or
   uv add strands-agents sideseat

2. Add telemetry

   from sideseat import SideSeat, Frameworks
   SideSeat(framework=Frameworks.Strands)
   
   from strands import Agent
   
   agent = Agent()
   response = agent("What is the capital of France?")
   print(response)

3. View runs

   Open http://localhost:5388 to see your runs.

Without SideSeat SDK

Strands has its own telemetry class that’s compatible with SideSeat:

from strands.telemetry import StrandsTelemetry

telemetry = StrandsTelemetry()
telemetry.setup_otlp_exporter(
    endpoint="http://localhost:5388/otel/default/v1/traces"
)

Note

The SideSeat SDK includes additional features like binary data handling and framework auto-detection. Use it unless you need Strands-specific telemetry configuration.

TypeScript

The Strands TypeScript SDK doesn’t include native OpenTelemetry yet. Use the SideSeat JavaScript SDK for tracing.

What You’ll See

SideSeat shows a trace timeline with:

• A parent span for the agent run
• Child spans for each LLM call with model, tokens, and cost
• Child spans for each tool execution with inputs and outputs

Tools

Strands automatically traces tool calls. Define tools normally:

from strands import Agent, tool

@tool
def get_weather(location: str) -> str:
    """Get weather for a location."""
    return f"Weather in {location}: Sunny, 72F"

agent = Agent(tools=[get_weather])
response = agent("What's the weather in Paris?")

Sessions

Group related traces using trace attributes:

agent = Agent(
    trace_attributes={
        "session.id": "conversation-123",
        "user.id": "user-456",
    }
)

These attributes appear in SideSeat and enable filtering. All turns with the same session.id are grouped under one session.

Next Steps

• Python SDK — SDK reference
• Core Concepts — understanding runs, steps, and messages
• Amazon Bedrock — provider-specific details