> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://developer.watson-orchestrate.ibm.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Overview

<Note>
  <Note>
    **Availability**

    This experience is currently only available on AWS SaaS Commercial and IBM Cloud Trial, Essential and Standard (non-isolated) instances.
  </Note>

  **Note:**

  You can use traces only in:

  * watsonx Orchestrate SaaS.
  * watsonx Orchestrate Developer Edition, when you set the `--with-ibm-telemetry` flag during initialization. For more information, see [Initializing watsonx Orchestrate Developer Edition server](../developer_edition/manage_local_server#initializing-watsonx-orchestrate-developer-edition-server).
</Note>

Traces provide a high-level view of what happens when an agent receives a request. They visualize the complete path a request takes through the agent, making them essential for understanding agent behavior. A tracer generates spans with detailed information about specific operations. Each span represents a distinct unit of work or activity.

With watsonx Orchestrate ADK, you access traces and their spans in two ways:

* [**Using ADK CLI**](./traces_with_cli)

  Run the `orchestrate observability traces` command to retrieve traces from your activity environment.

* [**Using a Python script**](./traces_with_python)

  Use the ADK Python library to write a script that retrieves traces from your watsonx Orchestrate environment.

You also access traces through the UI and the API. For more information, see [Trace details](https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/watsonx/watson-orchestrate/base?topic=agents-monitoring#trace-details) and [Trace search](https://developer.ibm.com/apis/catalog/watsonorchestrate--custom-assistants/api/API--watsonorchestrate--agentic-experience#searchTraces).