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Do not use this method for new deployments. For supported methods, see Deployment options.
Follow these steps to set up Braintrust in your AWS account using CloudFormation. Before following these instructions, make sure you have account access and are able to sign into Braintrust. You can set up the stack using either:
  1. Braintrust CLI (recommended): Requires a single command with AWS credentials
  2. AWS console: Run the process through the AWS web interface if you need more control or cannot use CLI credentials

Set up the stack

1

Install the CLI

Install the latest Braintrust CLI:
pip install --upgrade 'braintrust[cli]'

# verify the installation worked
braintrust --help
2

Create the CloudFormation stack

There are just a few relevant parameters you should consider for most use cases:
  • A stack name. This is arbitrary and allows you to refer back to the stack later. A name like “braintrust” or “braintrust-dev” should be fine.
  • --org-name should be the name of your organization (you can find this in your URL on the app, e.g. https://www.braintrust.dev/app/<YOUR_ORG_NAME>/...). This will ensure that only users with access to your organization can invoke commands on your Braintrust endpoint.
  • --provisioned-concurrency the number of lambda workers to keep running in memory. This is useful if you expect to have a lot of concurrent users, or if you want to reduce the cold-start latency of your API calls. Each increment costs about $40/month in AWS costs. The default is 0.
  • --template if you are deploying in a region other than us-east-1, you should specify the template for that region.
braintrust install api --create <YOUR_STACK_NAME> \
  --org-name <YOUR_ORG_NAME> \
  --provisioned-concurrency 1
This command is idempotent. If it fails, re-run the command without the --create flag, and it will resume tracking the progress of your CloudFormation stack. If your stack enters a failed state, e.g. it fails to create, please reach out to support.
Once the install completes, you’ll see a log statement like
Stack with name braintrust has been updated with status: UPDATE_COMPLETE_CLEANUP_IN_PROGRESS
Universal URL: https://dfwhllz61x709.cloudfront.net
Save the endpoint URL. You can now skip ahead to the Verifying the stack section.

Verify the stack

Run the following command to test that the stack is running. The first time you run it, AWS may do some setup work to provision your lambda function, and it can take up to 30 seconds to run.
curl -X GET '<YOUR_UNIVERSAL_URL>/ping'
You should see a response like {"id":"80c48a10-4888-4382-a55b-255018e70fe5","email":"[email protected]","organizations":[]}.

Configure your organization

Visit your organization’s settings page and set the API URL captured above. You can skip the realtime URL and proxy URL, unless you have an advanced need that requires it (see the docker guide for more information). Once you configure the URL, select Save. The page automatically attempts to test that you’re authorized to access the URL. URL config
The braintrust install api command tries to install these values for you. So if you see them already filled in, no need to change them!

Test the application

Hooray! At this point you should be able to test the full application. The easiest way to do this is by using the Python SDK. This simple Python script will run a full loop of using Braintrust and setting up an experiment. You can specify your API key in the api_key parameter or set it as the BRAINTRUST_API_KEY environment variable. The SDK will automatically use the API URL you configured in the settings page.
import braintrust

experiment = braintrust.init(project="SetupTest", org_name="my_org.com", api_key="sk-****")  # Replace with your org name and API key
experiment.log(
    input={"test": 1},
    output="foo",
    expected="bar",
    scores={
        "n": 0.5,
    },
    metadata={
        "id": 1,
    },
)
print(experiment.summarize())

Update the stack

Most new Braintrust releases do not require stack updates. Occasionally, however, you will need to update the stack to get access to new features and performance enhancements. Like installation, you can update the stack through either the CLI or AWS console.
To update your stack, run the following (replacing <YOUR_STACK_NAME>):
braintrust install api <YOUR_STACK_NAME> --update-template
You can also use this command to change parameters, with or without template updates. For example, if you want to allocate provisioned concurrency 8 to your lambda functions, run
braintrust install api <YOUR_STACK_NAME> --provisioned-concurrency 8

Advanced

To permit incoming and outgoing traffic between Braintrust’s lambda functions and other internal cloud resources, you can either run everything in the same VPC or setup VPC peering. This is necessary if you want to access resources like an LLM gateway or a database that is not publicly accessible.

VPC Peering

When you create your Braintrust CloudFormation, it automatically creates a VPC with the same name as your CloudFormation. You can access the Braintrust VPC’s name and ID from the CloudFormation’s Outputs tab (named pubPrivateVPCID). VPC Peering AWS has a comprehensive guide for configuring peering. Follow the instructions for

Troubleshooting

  • If you continue to see errors after updating the VPC peering group, you may need to update your CloudFormation template (which will effectively reboot your Lambda functions). You can do this by triggering an update on the CloudFormation and letting it run. You may need to change a stack parameter and then change it back to trigger the updates.
  • You can manually test network settings by booting up an EC2 machine in the Braintrust VPC to test connectivity. Make sure to assign a public IP to the instance and use the public subnet of the VPC while initializing.