[Doc] Tracing quick start by kevin-lyn · Pull Request #19086 · mlflow/mlflow

kevin-lyn · 2025-11-27T12:27:25Z

🛠 DevTools 🛠

Install mlflow from this PR

# mlflow
pip install git+https://github.com/mlflow/mlflow.git@refs/pull/19086/merge
# mlflow-skinny
pip install git+https://github.com/mlflow/mlflow.git@refs/pull/19086/merge#subdirectory=libs/skinny

For Databricks, use the following command:

%sh curl -LsSf https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mlflow/mlflow/HEAD/dev/install-skinny.sh | sh -s pull/19086/merge

Update the "setup" guide to focus on MLflow server setup.
Simplify the tracing quick start guide to focus on sending one trace.
Combine python & typescript tracing quickstart.
Although it's not a hard requirement, guide the user to create one experiment for each GenAI application.

Related Issues/PRs

#xxx

What changes are proposed in this pull request?

How is this PR tested?

Existing unit/integration tests
New unit/integration tests
Manual tests

Does this PR require documentation update?

Release Notes

Is this a user-facing change?

No. You can skip the rest of this section.
Yes. Give a description of this change to be included in the release notes for MLflow users.

What component(s), interfaces, languages, and integrations does this PR affect?

Components

How should the PR be classified in the release notes? Choose one:

rn/none - No description will be included. The PR will be mentioned only by the PR number in the "Small Bugfixes and Documentation Updates" section
rn/breaking-change - The PR will be mentioned in the "Breaking Changes" section
rn/feature - A new user-facing feature worth mentioning in the release notes
rn/bug-fix - A user-facing bug fix worth mentioning in the release notes
rn/documentation - A user-facing documentation change worth mentioning in the release notes

Should this PR be included in the next patch release?

Yes should be selected for bug fixes, documentation updates, and other small changes. No should be selected for new features and larger changes. If you're unsure about the release classification of this PR, leave this unchecked to let the maintainers decide.

What is a minor/patch release?

Minor release: a release that increments the second part of the version number (e.g., 1.2.0 -> 1.3.0).
Bug fixes, doc updates and new features usually go into minor releases.
Patch release: a release that increments the third part of the version number (e.g., 1.2.0 -> 1.2.1).
Bug fixes and doc updates usually go into patch releases.

Yes (this PR will be cherry-picked and included in the next patch release)
No (this PR will be included in the next minor release)

Signed-off-by: Kevin Lin <kevin.lin@databricks.com>

github-actions · 2025-11-27T15:21:27Z

Documentation preview for d310578 is available at:

https://pr-19086--mlflow-docs-preview.netlify.app/docs/latest/

Changed Pages (13)

genai/getting-started (modified)
genai/getting-started/connect-environment (modified)
genai/mcp (modified)
genai/tracing (modified)
genai/tracing/app-instrumentation (modified)
genai/tracing/app-instrumentation/opentelemetry (modified)
genai/tracing/app-instrumentation/typescript-sdk (modified)
genai/tracing/integrations/listing/openai (modified)
genai/tracing/opentelemetry (modified)
genai/tracing/quickstart (added)
genai/tracing/quickstart/python-openai (removed, ✅ redirect exists)
genai/tracing/quickstart/typescript-openai (removed, ✅ redirect exists)
self-hosting (modified)

More info

Ignore this comment if this PR does not change the documentation.
The preview is updated when a new commit is pushed to this PR.
This comment was created by this workflow run.
The documentation was built by this workflow run.

docs/docs/genai/tracing/quickstart/index.mdx

Signed-off-by: Kevin Lin <kevin.lin@databricks.com>

serena-ruan · 2025-11-28T08:03:41Z

Interestingly self-hosting is a standalone page, could we fix this so it's part of the original sidebar?

docs/docs/genai/tracing/quickstart/index.mdx

serena-ruan · 2025-11-28T08:39:42Z

docs/docs/genai/tracing/quickstart/index.mdx

+# Specify the tracking URI for the MLflow server.
+mlflow.set_tracking_uri("http://localhost:5000")
+
+# Specify the experiment you just created for your GenAI application.
+mlflow.set_experiment("My Application")


I wonder whether setting env vars with MLFLOW_TRACKING_URI and MLFLOW_EXPERIMENT_ID is better 🤔 In that way we can avoid teaching new users to use 'set_experiment' from the beginning

which one do we recommend?

There's no difference imo. But to your point that we only want to include tracing code here, then probably setting env var is better.

I think as a required step to finish this tracing quick start, introducing env var here does not bring value though - unless there is specific thing we want to educate the users about.

docs/docs/genai/tracing/quickstart/index.mdx

kevin-lyn · 2025-12-01T03:21:15Z

@serena-ruan I think the reason self-hosting is a separate top nav is because it's shared between classic and GenAI, but I agree we should fix it and move to the sidebar. let's fix it separately.

B-Step62 · 2025-12-01T08:07:14Z

@kevin-lyn @serena-ruan I think we should have self-hosted doc as a stand-slone nav to avoid coomplicating the contents. This is common pattern we can see from the other tools' documentation.

docs/docs/genai/getting-started/connect-environment.mdx

docs/docs/genai/tracing/quickstart/index.mdx

docs/src/content/setup_server.mdx

serena-ruan · 2025-12-01T08:38:52Z

@kevin-lyn @serena-ruan I think we should have self-hosted doc as a stand-slone nav to avoid coomplicating the contents. This is common pattern we can see from the other tools' documentation.

Oh now I noticed it's on the top header, yea that's fine. Previously I thought there's no direct main entry point :)

Signed-off-by: Kevin Lin <kevin.lin@databricks.com>

serena-ruan

LGTM!

Signed-off-by: Kevin Lin <kevin.lin@databricks.com>

kevin-lyn · 2025-12-02T15:16:25Z

Changes after PR approved: remove the old quick start for python & typescript and added redirection. Some content about typescript is missing due to the removal and will be fixed in followup PRs.

Signed-off-by: Kevin Lin <kevin.lin@databricks.com>

[Draft] Tracing quick start.

b173bdc

Signed-off-by: Kevin Lin <kevin.lin@databricks.com>

kevin-lyn added the team-review Trigger a team review request label Nov 27, 2025

github-actions bot requested review from B-Step62, BenWilson2, TomeHirata, WeichenXu123, daniellok-db, harupy, serena-ruan and xq-yin November 27, 2025 12:27

kevin-lyn marked this pull request as ready for review November 27, 2025 13:10

github-actions bot added area/docs Documentation issues rn/none List under Small Changes in Changelogs. labels Nov 27, 2025

lint

ad88abc

Signed-off-by: Kevin Lin <kevin.lin@databricks.com>

harupy reviewed Nov 28, 2025

View reviewed changes

docs/docs/genai/tracing/quickstart/index.mdx Show resolved Hide resolved

Make server setup reusable.

d1fc780

Signed-off-by: Kevin Lin <kevin.lin@databricks.com>

serena-ruan reviewed Nov 28, 2025

View reviewed changes

docs/docs/genai/tracing/quickstart/index.mdx Show resolved Hide resolved

serena-ruan reviewed Nov 28, 2025

View reviewed changes

docs/docs/genai/tracing/quickstart/index.mdx Show resolved Hide resolved

serena-ruan reviewed Nov 28, 2025

View reviewed changes

docs/docs/genai/tracing/quickstart/index.mdx Show resolved Hide resolved

B-Step62 reviewed Dec 1, 2025

View reviewed changes

Address review comments.

766ef6d

Signed-off-by: Kevin Lin <kevin.lin@databricks.com>

kevin-lyn changed the title ~~[Draft] Tracing quick start~~ [Doc] Tracing quick start Dec 2, 2025

kevin-lyn requested review from B-Step62 and harupy December 2, 2025 00:24

kevin-lyn requested a review from serena-ruan December 2, 2025 00:24

Refer to experiment details instead of URL for experiment id.

44e7b9d

Signed-off-by: Kevin Lin <kevin.lin@databricks.com>

serena-ruan approved these changes Dec 2, 2025

View reviewed changes

kevin-lyn added 2 commits December 2, 2025 22:19

Typescript -> TypeScript

0bab4f5

Signed-off-by: Kevin Lin <kevin.lin@databricks.com>

Remove python & typescript quick start since we have a combined one now.

601d883

Signed-off-by: Kevin Lin <kevin.lin@databricks.com>

kevin-lyn enabled auto-merge December 2, 2025 15:14

Remove unused media.

d310578

Signed-off-by: Kevin Lin <kevin.lin@databricks.com>

kevin-lyn added this pull request to the merge queue Dec 3, 2025

Merged via the queue into mlflow:master with commit c52f68c Dec 3, 2025
46 checks passed

kevin-lyn deleted the doc-tracing-quickstart branch December 3, 2025 00:47

Conversation

kevin-lyn commented Nov 27, 2025 • edited by github-actions bot Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

Uh oh!

Install mlflow from this PR

Related Issues/PRs

What changes are proposed in this pull request?

How is this PR tested?

Does this PR require documentation update?

Release Notes

Is this a user-facing change?

What component(s), interfaces, languages, and integrations does this PR affect?

How should the PR be classified in the release notes? Choose one:

Should this PR be included in the next patch release?

Uh oh!

github-actions bot commented Nov 27, 2025 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

serena-ruan commented Nov 28, 2025

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

serena-ruan Nov 28, 2025 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

Uh oh!

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

kevin-lyn Dec 1, 2025

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

serena-ruan Dec 1, 2025

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

kevin-lyn Dec 1, 2025

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

kevin-lyn commented Dec 1, 2025

Uh oh!

B-Step62 commented Dec 1, 2025

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

serena-ruan commented Dec 1, 2025

Uh oh!

serena-ruan left a comment

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

Uh oh!

kevin-lyn commented Dec 2, 2025

Uh oh!

Uh oh!

Reviewers

Assignees

Labels

Projects

Milestone

Development

Uh oh!

4 participants

kevin-lyn commented Nov 27, 2025 •

edited by github-actions bot

Loading

github-actions bot commented Nov 27, 2025 •

edited

Loading

serena-ruan Nov 28, 2025 •

edited

Loading