Google GenAI: Live API (real-time multimodal streaming) not instrumented

[braintrust-bot]

Gap

The Google GenAI Live API (google.genai.live) is not instrumented. This is Google's GA API for real-time, bidirectional multimodal interactions with Gemini models — supporting streaming text, audio, and video input/output over WebSocket connections.

The current Google GenAI wrapper (py/src/braintrust/wrappers/google_genai/__init__.py) instruments three surfaces:

Method	Instrumented?
models.generate_content()	Yes
models.generate_content_stream()	Yes
models.embed_content()	Yes
client.aio.live.connect()	No
live.send() / live.receive()	No

The wrap_client() function (line 50) is defined but is explicitly a no-op ("noop for now"), so Live API sessions created from a wrapped client are completely untraced.

What is missing

At minimum:

• Session-level span: A parent span created when client.aio.live.connect() opens a session, capturing model config, session duration, and aggregate token usage.
• Turn-level spans: Child spans for each send/receive turn within a session, capturing input content, output content, and per-turn token usage.
• Tool use within sessions: The Live API supports function calling mid-session; tool calls and results should be captured as nested spans.

Braintrust docs status

not_found — the Gemini integration page documents generate_content, streaming, function calling, structured outputs, thinking tokens, and context caching, but does not mention the Live API or real-time streaming.

Upstream sources

• Google GenAI Live API guide: https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/live
• Google GenAI Python SDK Live API: https://googleapis.github.io/python-genai/genai.html#genai.Client.aio (the live attribute)
• Live API supports: streaming text, audio, video input; function calling; code execution; session-level context caching

Local files inspected

• py/src/braintrust/wrappers/google_genai/__init__.py:
  • setup_genai() (lines 60–145) — patches Models and AsyncModels for generate_content, generate_content_stream, and embed_content only
  • wrap_client() (line 50) — defined as a no-op
  • No references to live, connect, LiveSession, or LiveConnectConfig
• py/src/braintrust/wrappers/test_google_genai.py — no tests reference the Live API
• py/noxfile.py — test_google_genai(latest) session exists but Live API is not tested