SkyWalking Python Agent

SkyWalking-Python: The Python Agent for Apache SkyWalking, which provides the native tracing abilities for Python project.

SkyWalking: an APM(application performance monitor) system, especially designed for microservices, cloud native and container-based (Docker, Kubernetes, Mesos) architectures.

Set up Python Agent

SkyWalking Python SDK requires SkyWalking 8.0+.

from skywalking import agent, config

config.init(collector='127.0.0.1:11800', service='your awesome service')
agent.start()

Alternatively, you can also pass the configurations via environment variables and you don't need to call config.init.

The supported environment variables are as follows:

Environment Variable	Description	Default
`SW_AGENT_NAME`	The name of the Python service	`Python Service Name`
`SW_AGENT_INSTANCE`	The name of the Python service instance	Randomly generated
`SW_AGENT_COLLECTOR_BACKEND_SERVICES`	The backend OAP server address	`127.0.0.1:11800`
`SW_AGENT_PROTOCOL`	The protocol to communicate with the backend OAP, `http` or `grpc`, we highly suggest using `grpc` in production as it's well optimized than `http`	`grpc`
`SW_AGENT_LOGGING_LEVEL`	The logging level, could be one of `CRITICAL`, `FATAL`, `ERROR`, `WARN`(`WARNING`), `INFO`, `DEBUG`	`INFO`
`SW_AGENT_DISABLE_PLUGINS`	The name patterns in CSV pattern, plugins whose name matches one of the pattern won't be installed	`''`

Supported Libraries

There're some built-in plugins that support automatic instrumentation of Python libraries, the complete lists are as follow:

Library	Plugin Name
http.server	`sw_http_server`
urllib.request	`sw_urllib_request`

API

Apart from the libraries that can be instrumented automatically, we also provide some APIs to enable manual instrumentation.

Create Spans

The code snippet below shows how to create entry span, exit span and local span.

from skywalking import Component
from skywalking.trace.context import SpanContext, get_context
from skywalking.trace.tags import Tag

context: SpanContext = get_context()  # get a tracing context
# create an entry span, by using `with` statement,
# the span automatically starts/stops when entering/exiting the context
with context.new_entry_span(op='https://github.com/apache') as span:
    span.component = Component.Flask
# the span automatically stops when exiting the `with` context

with context.new_exit_span(op='https://github.com/apache', peer='localhost:8080') as span:
    span.component = Component.Flask

with context.new_local_span(op='https://github.com/apache') as span:
    span.tag(Tag(key='Singer', val='Nakajima'))

Decorators

from time import sleep

from skywalking import Component
from skywalking.decorators import trace
from skywalking.trace.context import SpanContext, get_context

@trace()  # the operation name is the method name('some_other_method') by default
def some_other_method():
    sleep(1)


@trace(op='awesome')  # customize the operation name to 'awesome'
def some_method():
    some_other_method()


context: SpanContext = get_context()
with context.new_entry_span(op=str('https://github.com/apache/skywalking')) as span:
    span.component = Component.Flask
    some_method()

FAQs

Check the FAQ page or add the FAQs there.

License

Apache 2.0

The Python agent for Apache SkyWalking

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