> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://maxim-gtm.mintlify.site/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# What is Agent Observability and Why do I Need It?

> Observability is the practice of monitoring, tracing, and analyzing the internal states, decision-making processes, and outputs of AI agents in real-time.  <br/> <br/> Maxim AI provides end-to-end visibility into your AI agent's performance by [tracing](https://www.getmaxim.ai/docs/tracing/overview) the complete request lifecycle. This includes context retrieval, tool and API calls, LLM requests and responses, and multi-turn conversation flows. <br/> <br/> With this comprehensive tracing you can quickly identify failure modes, uncover edge cases, and diagnose root causes. You can also [set up real-time alerts](https://www.getmaxim.ai/docs/online-evals/set-up-alerts-and-notifications) to get notified of any regressions in quality or when performance metrics exceed defined thresholds in production. <br/> 

(See: Learn more about agent observability [here](https://www.getmaxim.ai/docs/tracing/overview).)


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