---
title: Activity & Observability
description: Monitor workflow executions, inspect traces, and track operational health from the unified Activity surface.
---

AKOS captures detailed telemetry for every execution. The sidebar **Activity** screen (nav id `observe`) is the primary entry point for run monitoring. **Traces** and **Observability** remain separate routable screens for span-level and aggregate health views.

## Watching a run live

AKOS shows you what's happening *while* a run executes, not only after it finishes.

- **Live event feed** — the [Dashboard](/docs/using-the-app/dashboard) terminal-style activity feed streams events as they happen. Click any run event to open that run's detail.
- **Running-node pulse on the canvas** — open a flow in the editor and run it: the executing node **pulses** on the canvas with a status bar naming the step in progress.
- **Global run indicators** — a pulsing **top-bar pill** and a **sidebar badge** on Activity show in-flight run counts; Activity and Workflows nav items pulse while work is running. Click the pill to jump to Activity.
- **Toasts** — brief notifications for run completion, approvals needed, or exports ready.

These indicators read the same live run count everywhere.

## Activity screen (Runs)

The Activity screen renders the **Runs** monitor (nav ids `observe` and `runs` both land here).

### Run list

Each row shows:

- Run ID and task description.
- Status: `running`, `completed`, `failed`, `paused` (HITL), or `cancelled`.
- Duration, cost (USD), and token count.
- Trigger name (cron, webhook, manual, etc.).

Use **search** to filter by task or run ID. Overflow actions include compare runs, CSV/NDJSON export (requires `runs:export`), signed batch export, and print.

Filter chips appear when the list is scoped to a trigger or agent.

### Run detail

Click a run to open the detail panel:

- **Header** — status, share link, artifact viewer toggle, stop/retry controls.
- **Metrics** — duration, cost, tokens, trigger.
- **Assurance** — egress, firewall, sandbox decisions.
- **Agents / tools / evals** — participants and invocations.
- **Artifacts** — outputs linked to [Results](/docs/using-the-app/assets).

## Traces screen

Open via command palette (`traces`) or deep-link alias. Shows OpenTelemetry-compatible distributed traces — one span per agent call, tool invocation, or sub-flow. Use Traces for latency diagnosis at span level.

## Observability screen

Open via command palette (`observability`) or deep-link alias. Aggregate views:

- **Health** — sidecar, storage, and configured service checks.
- **Metrics** — run volume, error rates, latency, cost trends.
- **Incidents** — anomaly and incident records linked to runs.

## Cost in run context

Per-run cost appears in Activity detail and rollups on [Cost](/docs/using-the-app/cost). The Activity screen does not duplicate budget editing.

## Legacy deep links

Older URLs and notifications may use `runs`, `traces`, or `observability` as screen ids. These remain valid `ActiveScreen` aliases — they route to Activity (runs) or the standalone Traces / Observability screens respectively. Audit moved to [Governance](/docs/using-the-app/governance) › Audit (no longer an Activity tab).

## Related screens

| Need | Go to |
|---|---|
| Live overview | [Dashboard](/docs/using-the-app/dashboard) |
| Workflow design | [Workflows](/docs/using-the-app/flows) |
| Human approvals | [Inbox](/docs/using-the-app/inbox) |
| Run outputs | [Results](/docs/using-the-app/assets) |
| Spend per run | [Cost](/docs/using-the-app/cost) |
| Sandbox / egress decisions | [Security](/docs/using-the-app/security) |