# Observability for Pipecat with Opik

> Start here to integrate Opik into your Pipecat-based real-time voice agent application for end-to-end LLM observability, unit testing, and optimization.

[Pipecat](https://github.com/pipecat-ai/pipecat) is an open-source Python framework for building real-time voice and multimodal conversational AI agents. Developed by Daily, it enables fully programmable AI voice agents and supports multimodal interactions, positioning itself as a flexible solution for developers looking to build conversational AI systems.

This guide explains how to integrate Opik with Pipecat for observability and tracing of real-time voice agents, enabling you to monitor, debug, and optimize your Pipecat agents in the Opik dashboard.

## Account Setup

[Comet](https://www.comet.com/site?from=llm\&utm_source=opik\&utm_medium=colab\&utm_content=pipecat\&utm_campaign=opik) provides a hosted version of the Opik platform, [simply create an account](https://www.comet.com/signup?from=llm\&utm_source=opik\&utm_medium=colab\&utm_content=pipecat\&utm_campaign=opik) and grab your API Key.

> You can also run the Opik platform locally, see the [installation guide](https://www.comet.com/docs/opik/self-host/overview/?from=llm\&utm_source=opik\&utm_medium=colab\&utm_content=pipecat\&utm_campaign=opik) for more information.

<Frame>
  <img src="https://files.buildwithfern.com/https://opik.docs.buildwithfern.com/docs/opik/2026-01-30T17:33:07.444Z/img/tracing/pipecat_integration.png" />
</Frame>

## Getting started

To use the Pipecat integration with Opik, you will need to have Pipecat and the required OpenTelemetry packages installed:

```bash
pip install pipecat-ai[daily,webrtc,silero,cartesia,deepgram,openai,tracing] opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-proto-http websockets
```

<Tabs>
  <Tab value="Opik Cloud" title="Opik Cloud">
    ```bash wordWrap
    export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=https://www.comet.com/opik/api/v1/private/otel
    export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS='Authorization=<your-api-key>,Comet-Workspace=default'
    ```
  </Tab>

  <Tab value="Enterprise deployment" title="Enterprise deployment">
    ```bash wordWrap
    export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=https://<comet-deployment-url>/opik/api/v1/private/otel
    export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS='Authorization=<your-api-key>,Comet-Workspace=default'
    ```
  </Tab>

  <Tab value="Self-hosted instance" title="Self-hosted instance">
    ```bash
    export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=http://localhost:5173/api/v1/private/otel
    export OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS='projectName=<your-project-name>'
    ```
  </Tab>
</Tabs>

## Using Opik with Pipecat

For the basic example, you'll need an OpenAI API key. You can set it as an environment variable:

```bash
export OPENAI_API_KEY="YOUR_OPENAI_API_KEY"
```

Or set it programmatically:

```python
import os
import getpass

if "OPENAI_API_KEY" not in os.environ:
    os.environ["OPENAI_API_KEY"] = getpass.getpass("Enter your OpenAI API key: ")
```

Enable tracing in your Pipecat application by setting up OpenTelemetry instrumentation and configuring your pipeline task. For complete details on Pipecat's OpenTelemetry implementation, see the [official Pipecat OpenTelemetry documentation](https://docs.pipecat.ai/server/utilities/opentelemetry):

```python