Conditional Tracing - PandaProbe

PandaProbe supports fully disabling the SDK, making it safe to leave instrumentation in production code that you only want active in certain environments.

Disable via environment variable

export PANDAPROBE_ENABLED=false

When PANDAPROBE_ENABLED=false:

The SDK does not initialize a client
Python’s pandaprobe.get_client() returns None; TypeScript’s getClient() returns null
flush() and shutdown() silently do nothing
Python and TypeScript decorators pass through transparently
Wrappers return the original client unchanged
Integrations do not submit traces

This makes it safe to leave PandaProbe instrumentation in all environments. The SDK adds zero overhead when disabled.

Disable via init()

Python
TypeScript

Python

import pandaprobe
pandaprobe.init(enabled=False)

TypeScript

import { init } from "pandaprobe";
init({ enabled: false });

Environment-based configuration

Common pattern using different configurations per environment:

Python

import os
import pandaprobe

env = os.environ.get("APP_ENV", "development")

pandaprobe.init(
    api_key=os.environ.get("PANDAPROBE_API_KEY"),
    project_name="my-project",
    environment=env,
    enabled=env != "testing",
    debug=env == "development",
)

TypeScript

import { init } from "pandaprobe";

const environment = process.env.APP_ENV ?? "development";
init({
  apiKey: process.env.PANDAPROBE_API_KEY,
  projectName: "my-project",
  environment,
  enabled: environment !== "testing",
  debug: environment === "development",
});

Conditional tracing without disabling

If you want the SDK enabled but want to conditionally trace specific operations:

Python

import pandaprobe

def handle_request(query: str):
    if should_trace(query):
        with pandaprobe.start_trace("agent", input={"messages": [{"role": "user", "content": query}]}) as t:
            return process(query, t)
    else:
        return process(query, None)

TypeScript

import { withTrace } from "pandaprobe";

async function handleRequest(query: string) {
  if (shouldTrace(query)) {
    return withTrace(
      "agent",
      { input: { messages: [{ role: "user", content: query }] } },
      (trace) => processQuery(query, trace),
    );
  }
  return processQuery(query, null);
}

​Disable via environment variable

​Disable via init()

​Environment-based configuration

​Conditional tracing without disabling

Disable via environment variable

Disable via init()

Environment-based configuration

Conditional tracing without disabling