---
title: "Open-source, self-hosted LLM observability · coding.sh"
description: "Open-source, self-hosted LLM observability: one coding.sh serve takes OpenTelemetry traces and SDK events, on SQLite, Postgres or ClickHouse."
canonical: https://coding.sh/docs/use-cases/self-hosted-observability
human_url: https://coding.sh/docs/use-cases/self-hosted-observability
markdown_url: https://coding.sh/docs/use-cases/self-hosted-observability.md
agents_url: https://coding.sh/agents.md
llms_url: https://coding.sh/llms.txt
updated: 2026-11-11
---

# Open-source, self-hosted LLM observability

Open-source, self-hosted LLM observability: one coding.sh serve takes OpenTelemetry traces and SDK events, on SQLite, Postgres or ClickHouse.

coding.sh is MIT-licensed observability and evals for AI agents that runs on your own machines. On a laptop it records coding-agent sessions into a local SQLite file. For a team or for production apps, one `coding.sh serve` process takes OpenTelemetry traces and SDK events, and serves the viewer and an API from a database you run.

## On one machine

shell

```
curl -fsSL https://coding.sh/install | sh
```

Everything lives in `~/.coding.sh`: a SQLite index (`index.db`, through `node:sqlite`, with no native dependencies) and a content-addressed blob store for large prompts and tool output. Redaction of keys and tokens runs before anything is written. With no sinks configured, no session data leaves the machine. The only default network request is a daily update check, which you can turn off.

Apps and agent frameworks that export OpenTelemetry can send to a local receiver:

shell

```
coding.sh collector       # OTLP/HTTP on 127.0.0.1:4318, prints the exporter environment
```

It reads the OTel GenAI semantic conventions, OpenInference, Vercel AI SDK spans and the Claude Code, Codex and Gemini CLI log events. Every model call becomes an event with model, tokens, duration and time to first token.

## For a team

shell

```
docker run -d --name coding-sh -p 4318:4318 -v coding-sh:/data --restart unless-stopped ghcr.io/jackulau/coding.sh
docker logs coding-sh                                   # the read key, the ingest key, the connect command
coding.sh init --remote http://<server>:4318 --key csh_ik_…   # on each developer's machine
```

The first start makes a read key and an ingest key and keeps them on the volume. Developers' machines then send new sessions as metadata only: no prompts, code or tool output unless the team chooses `--remote-mode full`. Redaction runs on the developer's machine before anything is sent.

## What the server needs

- One Node process (Node 22.15 or newer) or the Docker image, on one port, 4318 by default. The image is distroless Node 22, built for amd64 and arm64.
- A store. SQLite on a volume is the default. Set `CODING_SH_STORE_URL` to a `postgres://` or `clickhouse://` URL for more traffic, and `CODING_SH_BLOB_URL` to an `s3://` URL (S3, R2, MinIO) for large payloads. On Postgres, blobs default to the same database.
- Keys. Set `CODING_SH_INGEST_KEYS` and `CODING_SH_READ_KEYS`, or let the first start make them on a `/data` volume. On a non-loopback address, serve will not start with an ingest key but no read key or viewer login.
- TLS from a proxy in front. Serve speaks plain HTTP.

`deploy/compose/` has stacks for SQLite, Postgres 17 and ClickHouse, and there are recipes for Fly, Railway, Render and Vercel Functions. Serve never checks for updates.

## What it receives

| Route | What |
| --- | --- |
| `POST /v1/traces`, `/v1/logs` | OTLP/HTTP, protobuf or JSON |
| `POST /v1/ingest` | batched events from the TypeScript and Python SDKs |
| `/proxy/` | the model API proxy, for agents that send every call through it |
| `GET /`, `/api/*` | the viewer and its API, with a read key |
| `/healthz`, `/readyz`, `/metrics` | health checks and Prometheus metrics |

A request is acknowledged only after its events are committed, and retries never create duplicates. The CLI, MCP tools, datasets and experiments work on the same store URL.

## Current status

- `@codingdotsh/sdk` and the store plugins (`coding.sh-store-postgres`, `coding.sh-store-clickhouse`, `coding.sh-store-s3`) are on npm. The Python SDK, `coding-sh`, is not on PyPI yet; install it from a checkout. The Docker image includes the store plugins.
- The image `ghcr.io/jackulau/coding.sh` is published for every release from 0.1.2 on.

## Questions

### Can I use plain OpenTelemetry, with no SDK?

Yes. Set `OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT` to the server and send the ingest key as an `Authorization: Bearer` header.

### Can each person's data stay separate?

The ingest key decides the project its data lands in. With one key per person, sessions show up per person, and a read key can be limited to one project.

### Does it delete old data?

Only if you set `CODING_SH_RETENTION_DAYS` (or a per-project retention). The default keeps everything.

## Next

- [Self-host for a team](https://coding.sh/docs/how-to/self-host-team)
- [One server for a team](https://github.com/jackulau/coding.sh/blob/main/docs/guides/team.md)
- [coding.sh in production](https://github.com/jackulau/coding.sh/blob/main/docs/production/README.md)
- [Trace your own agent](https://coding.sh/docs/how-to/trace-your-agent)
- [Storage, sinks and privacy](https://github.com/jackulau/coding.sh/blob/main/docs/guides/privacy.md)

To set coding.sh up for a user, follow the agent workflow at [/agents.md](https://coding.sh/agents.md).