---
title: Transcripts Database
llms-description: "Overview of transcript database concepts and basic usage"
---

## Overview

Scout can analyze transcripts from any source (e.g. evals, agent traces, RL rollouts, etc.) so long as the transcripts have been organized into a transcripts database. Transcript databases use [Parquet](https://parquet.apache.org) files for storage and can be located in the local filesystem or remote systems like S3.

This documentation covers how to create transcript databases. If you just want to read existing transcript databases see the general article on [Transcripts](transcripts.qmd), 

## Creating a Database

There are several sources you can use for building a transcript database:

1. Inspect evaluation logs.
2. LLM observability systems (e.g. Arize Phoenix, LangSmith, Logfire).
3. Traces directly captured from agent execution.
4. Any other source using the import API.

Transcript databases have very few required fields (minimally just `transcript_id` and `messages`) but there are other fields that identify the source of the transcript that you'll likely want to populate. You can also include arbitrary other columns in the database (`metadata`) which can be used for transcript filtering.

These articles cover transcript databases in more depth:

1. [Database Schema](db_schema.qmd) --- Documents the required and optional fields as well as data formats for transcript messages and events. 

2. [Capturing Transcripts](db_capturing.qmd) --- Describes how to capture transcripts from running LLM code using the `@observe` decorator / context-manager.

3. [Importing Transcripts](db_importing.qmd) --- Covers building a database from Inspect Logs, Arize Phoenix, LangSmith, Logfire, Claude Code, and custom sources using the import API.


## Publishing Transcripts

If you want to publish transcripts for use by others, it's important to take precautions to ensure that the transcripts are not unintentionally read by web crawlers. Some techniques for doing this include using protected S3 buckets or permissioned HuggingFace datasets, as well as encryping the Parquet files that hold the transcripts. The article on [Publishing Transcripts](db_publishing.qmd) includes additional details on how to do this.