Quickstart

Get up and running with Cascade in minutes. This guide covers installation, API key setup, and sending your first trace.

Install the SDK

Install the Cascade SDK from PyPI:

pip install cascade-sdk

Requires Python 3.8 or higher.

Set your credentials

Get your API key and endpoint from the Cascade Dashboard. Both are provided per customer. Create a .env file in the root of your project:

.env

CASCADE_API_KEY="csk_live_..."
CASCADE_ENDPOINT="https://your-endpoint.runcascade.com/v1/traces"

Or pass them directly in code:

from cascade import init_tracing

init_tracing(api_key="csk_live_...", endpoint="https://your-endpoint.runcascade.com/v1/traces")

Initialize tracing

Call init_tracing() once at the top of your application. Everything else is automatic.

from cascade import init_tracing

# With a project name (recommended - organizes traces in the dashboard)
init_tracing(project="customer_support_chatbot")

Send your first trace

Wrap your agent’s entry point with trace_run() and use wrap_llm_client() to automatically capture all LLM interactions:

my_agent.py

from cascade import init_tracing, trace_run, wrap_llm_client
from anthropic import Anthropic

# Initialize tracing
init_tracing(project="my_first_agent")

# Wrap your LLM client - all calls are now automatically traced
client = wrap_llm_client(Anthropic())

# Create a traced agent run
with trace_run("SimpleAgent"):
    response = client.messages.create(
        model="claude-sonnet-4-20250514",
        max_tokens=100,
        messages=[
            {"role": "user", "content": "Say hello and introduce yourself in one sentence."}
        ]
    )
    print(response.content[0].text)

Run the script:

python my_agent.py

Open the Cascade Dashboard to see your trace with full details including prompts, completions, token counts, latency, and cost.

Next steps

Sessions & Tracing

Learn about tracing runs, sub-agents, tools, and LLM clients.

Evaluation SDK

Score your agent’s performance with built-in and custom evaluators.

Integrations

Auto-instrument LangGraph, OpenAI Agents, and Claude Agents.

Model providers

Trace any LLM provider through a unified wrapper.

Getting started

Performance Evaluation

Dashboard Overview

Integrations

Model providers

Developers

Security

Install the SDK

Set your credentials

Initialize tracing

Send your first trace

Next steps

Sessions & Tracing

Evaluation SDK

Integrations

Model providers

​Install the SDK

​Set your credentials

​Initialize tracing

​Send your first trace

​Next steps

Sessions & Tracing

Evaluation SDK

Integrations

Model providers

Install the SDK

Set your credentials

Initialize tracing

Send your first trace

Next steps