Langfuse Datasets Cookbook
In this cookbook, we’ll iterate on systems prompts with the goal of getting only the capital of a given country. We use Langfuse datasets, to store a list of example inputs and expected outputs.
This is a very simple example, you can run experiments on any LLM application that you either trace with the Langfuse SDKs (Python, JS/TS) or via one of our integrations (e.g. Langchain).
Simple example application
- Model: gpt-4o
- Input: country name
- Output: capital
- Evaluation: exact match of completion and ground truth
- Experiment on: system prompt
Setup
%pip install langfuse openai langchain_openai langchain --upgrade
import os # Get keys for your project from the project settings page: https://cloud.langfuse.com os.environ["LANGFUSE_PUBLIC_KEY"] = "pk-lf-..." os.environ["LANGFUSE_SECRET_KEY"] = "sk-lf-..." os.environ["LANGFUSE_HOST"] = "https://cloud.langfuse.com" # 🇪🇺 EU region # os.environ["LANGFUSE_HOST"] = "https://us.cloud.langfuse.com" # 🇺🇸 US region # Your openai key os.environ["OPENAI_API_KEY"] = "sk-proj-..."
With the environment variables set, we can now initialize the Langfuse client. get_client() initializes the Langfuse client using the credentials provided in the environment variables.
from langfuse import get_client langfuse = get_client() # Verify connection if langfuse.auth_check(): print("Langfuse client is authenticated and ready!") else: print("Authentication failed. Please check your credentials and host.")
Langfuse client is authenticated and ready!
Create a dataset
langfuse.create_dataset(name="capital_cities");
Items
Load local items into the Langfuse dataset. Alternatively you can add items from production via the Langfuse UI.
# example items, could also be json instead of strings local_items = [ {"input": {"country": "Italy"}, "expected_output": "Rome"}, {"input": {"country": "Spain"}, "expected_output": "Madrid"}, {"input": {"country": "Brazil"}, "expected_output": "Brasília"}, {"input": {"country": "Japan"}, "expected_output": "Tokyo"}, {"input": {"country": "India"}, "expected_output": "New Delhi"}, {"input": {"country": "Canada"}, "expected_output": "Ottawa"}, {"input": {"country": "South Korea"}, "expected_output": "Seoul"}, {"input": {"country": "Argentina"}, "expected_output": "Buenos Aires"}, {"input": {"country": "South Africa"}, "expected_output": "Pretoria"}, {"input": {"country": "Egypt"}, "expected_output": "Cairo"}, ]
# Upload to Langfuse for item in local_items: langfuse.create_dataset_item( dataset_name="capital_cities", # any python object or value input=item["input"], # any python object or value, optional expected_output=item["expected_output"] )
Example using Langfuse @observe()
decorator
Application
This an example production application that we want to evaluate. It is instrumented with the Langfuse Decorator. We do not need to change the application code to evaluate it subsequently.
from langfuse.openai import openai from langfuse import observe, get_client langfuse = get_client() @observe() def run_my_custom_llm_app(input, system_prompt): messages = [ {"role":"system", "content": system_prompt}, {"role":"user", "content": input["country"]} ] completion = openai.chat.completions.create( model="gpt-4o", messages=messages ).choices[0].message.content # Explicitly set trace input/output for evaluation features langfuse.update_current_trace( input=input, output=completion ) return completion
Experiment runner
This is a simple experiment runner that runs the application on each item in the dataset and evaluates the output.
# we use a very simple eval here, you can use any eval library # see https://langfuse.com/docs/scores/model-based-evals for details # you can also use LLM-as-a-judge managed within Langfuse to evaluate the outputs def simple_evaluation(output, expected_output): return output == expected_output
def run_experiment(experiment_name, system_prompt): dataset = langfuse.get_dataset("capital_cities") for item in dataset.items: # Use the item.run() context manager with item.run( run_name = experiment_name, ) as root_span: # root_span is the root span of the new trace for this item and run. # All subsequent langfuse operations within this block are part of this trace. # Call your application logic output = run_my_custom_llm_app(item.input, system_prompt) # Optionally, score the result against the expected output root_span.score_trace(name="exact_match", value = simple_evaluation(output, item.expected_output)) print(f"\nFinished processing dataset 'capital_cities' for run '{experiment_name}'.")
Run experiments
Now we can easily run experiments with different configurations to explore which yields the best results.
from langfuse import get_client langfuse = get_client() run_experiment( "famous_city", "The user will input countries, respond with the most famous city in this country" ) run_experiment( "directly_ask", "What is the capital of the following country?" ) run_experiment( "asking_specifically", "The user will input countries, respond with only the name of the capital" ) run_experiment( "asking_specifically_2nd_try", "The user will input countries, respond with only the name of the capital. State only the name of the city." ) # Assert that all events were sent to the Langfuse API langfuse.flush() langfuse.flush()
Finished processing dataset 'capital_cities' for run 'famous_city'. Finished processing dataset 'capital_cities' for run 'directly_ask'. Finished processing dataset 'capital_cities' for run 'asking_specifically'. Finished processing dataset 'capital_cities' for run 'asking_specifically_2nd_try'.
Example using Langchain
from langchain_openai import ChatOpenAI from langchain.prompts import ChatPromptTemplate from langchain_core.prompts import ChatPromptTemplate, MessagesPlaceholder from langchain_core.messages import HumanMessage def run_my_langchain_llm_app(input, system_message, callback_handler): # Create a trace via Langfuse spans and use Langchain within it with langfuse.start_as_current_span(name="my-langchain-agent") as root_span: prompt = ChatPromptTemplate.from_messages( [("system", system_message), MessagesPlaceholder(variable_name="messages")] ) chat = ChatOpenAI() chain = prompt | chat result = chain.invoke( { "messages": [HumanMessage(content=input)] }, config={"callbacks":[callback_handler]} ) # Update trace output root_span.update_trace( input=input, output=result.content) return result.content
from langfuse.langchain import CallbackHandler def run_langchain_experiment(experiment_name, system_prompt): dataset = langfuse.get_dataset("capital_cities") # Initialize the Langfuse handler langfuse_handler = CallbackHandler() for item in dataset.items: # Use the item.run() context manager with item.run( run_name = experiment_name, run_description="My first run", run_metadata={"model": "gpt-4o"}, ) as root_span: # root_span is the root span of the new trace for this item and run. # All subsequent langfuse operations within this block are part of this trace. # Call your application logic output = run_my_langchain_llm_app(item.input["country"], system_prompt, langfuse_handler) # Optionally, score the result against the expected output root_span.score_trace(name="exact_match", value = simple_evaluation(output, item.expected_output)) print(f"\nFinished processing dataset 'capital_cities' for run '{experiment_name}'.")
run_langchain_experiment( "langchain_famous_city", "The user will input countries, respond with the most famous city in this country" ) run_langchain_experiment( "langchain_directly_ask", "What is the capital of the following country?" ) run_langchain_experiment( "langchain_asking_specifically", "The user will input countries, respond with only the name of the capital" ) run_langchain_experiment( "langchain_asking_specifically_2nd_try", "The user will input countries, respond with only the name of the capital. State only the name of the city." )
More Examples
- LangGraph Dataset Experiment
- OpenAI Agents SDK Dataset Experiment
- CrewAI Dataset Experiment
- Smolagents Dataset Experiment