Laminar is an open-source platform designed for engineering AI products, focusing on creating a data flywheel for AI applications. It provides tracing, evaluation, dataset management, and labeling capabilities, aiming to simplify the development and monitoring of AI systems. The platform targets AI engineers and researchers seeking to gain insights into their AI application's performance and behavior.

How It Works

Laminar leverages OpenTelemetry for automatic tracing of common AI frameworks like LangChain and OpenAI with minimal code integration. Traces capture input/output, latency, cost, and token counts, with support for function and image tracing. Its evaluation engine allows for parallel execution of tests, and trace data can be exported to datasets for further analysis or re-evaluation. The backend is built in Rust for performance, utilizing RabbitMQ for message queuing, PostgreSQL for application data, and ClickHouse for analytics.

Quick Start & Requirements

• Self-hosting: Clone the repository and run docker compose up -d for a lightweight setup. For full features, use docker compose -f docker-compose-full.yml up -d. Access the UI at http://localhost:5667.
• SDK Integration:
  • TypeScript: npm add @lmnr-ai/lmnr, then initialize with Laminar.initialize({ projectApiKey: ... }).
  • Python: pip install --upgrade 'lmnr[all]', then initialize with Laminar.initialize(project_api_key="...").
• Prerequisites for Index UI: Requires Anthropic and Scrapybara API keys set in the .env file.
• Documentation: docs.lmnr.ai

Highlighted Details

• OpenTelemetry-based automatic tracing for popular AI frameworks.
• Built with Rust for high performance and low overhead.
• Comprehensive stack including RabbitMQ, PostgreSQL, and ClickHouse.
• Includes "Index," a self-hostable browser agent for autonomous web tasks.

Maintenance & Community

The project is associated with Y Combinator (S24). Further community and contribution details are available in the Contributing guide.

Licensing & Compatibility

The repository does not explicitly state a license in the provided README. Compatibility for commercial use or closed-source linking is not specified.

Limitations & Caveats

The self-hosting setup for the Index UI requires specific API keys (Anthropic, Scrapybara), and the full Docker Compose setup is described as "heavy." The license is not clearly stated, which may impact commercial adoption.