[bot] Perplexity TypeScript SDK (`@perplexity-ai/perplexity_ai`) not instrumented — no tracing for chat completions or search

[braintrust-bot]

Summary

Perplexity publishes an official TypeScript SDK: @perplexity-ai/perplexity_ai on npm (v0.33.0, actively maintained). It is a Stainless-generated client with its own HTTP layer — it does not depend on the openai npm package. This repository has zero instrumentation for any @perplexity-ai/perplexity_ai surface — no wrapper, no channels, no plugin, no auto-instrumentation config. Users who call @perplexity-ai/perplexity_ai directly get no Braintrust spans.

What instrumentation is missing

The @perplexity-ai/perplexity_ai npm package exposes these execution surfaces, none of which are instrumented:

SDK Method	Description
client.chat.completions.create({ model, messages })	Chat completions with real-time web search grounding
client.chat.completions.create({ ..., stream: true })	Streaming chat completions
client.search.create({ query, ... })	Ranked web search results (multi-query, domain/date filtering)
client.responses.create({ input, model })	Simpler response generation interface

The SDK has its own HTTP layer (custom undici/Bun/Deno client support) and is not patched by the existing openai auto-instrumentation.

No coverage in any instrumentation layer:

• No wrapper function (e.g. wrapPerplexity())
• No diagnostics channels for Perplexity methods
• No plugin handler in js/src/instrumentation/plugins/
• No auto-instrumentation config in js/src/auto-instrumentations/configs/
• No e2e test scenarios
• Grep for perplexity across js/src/ returns zero matches

Indirect coverage is insufficient:

Braintrust's Perplexity integration page documents a gateway/OpenAI SDK approach — pointing the openai npm client at https://gateway.braintrust.dev/v1 to route Perplexity model calls. Users who call @perplexity-ai/perplexity_ai directly — which is Perplexity's own official TypeScript client with its own HTTP layer — get no spans at all under that approach. The search.create() surface (web search with citations) has no equivalent in the gateway approach.

Braintrust docs status

not_found for direct SDK instrumentation. The Braintrust Perplexity integration page documents a gateway/OpenAI SDK approach only and does not reference @perplexity-ai/perplexity_ai.

• https://www.braintrust.dev/docs/integrations/ai-providers/perplexity

Upstream references

• @perplexity-ai/perplexity_ai npm package: https://www.npmjs.com/package/@perplexity-ai/perplexity_ai
• Official Perplexity Node.js SDK GitHub: https://github.com/perplexityai/perplexity-node
• Perplexity SDK quickstart: https://docs.perplexity.ai/guides/perplexity-sdk
• Perplexity API reference (chat completions): https://docs.perplexity.ai/reference/post_chat_completions

Local files inspected

• js/src/auto-instrumentations/configs/ — full config list: anthropic.ts, openai.ts, ai-sdk.ts, groq.ts, mistral.ts, cohere.ts, huggingface.ts, google-genai.ts, google-adk.ts, genkit.ts, openai-agents.ts, openrouter.ts, openrouter-agent.ts, claude-agent-sdk.ts, cursor-sdk.ts, github-copilot.ts, openai-codex.ts, flue.ts, strands-agent-sdk.ts, pi-coding-agent.ts, bedrock-runtime.ts — no Perplexity config present
• js/src/instrumentation/plugins/ — no Perplexity channels or plugin file
• js/src/wrappers/ — no perplexity.ts wrapper file
• e2e/scenarios/ — no Perplexity test scenarios
• Full repo grep for perplexity in js/src/ — zero matches