Prefactor vs Respan API + MCP

Prefactor

The public OpenAPI document lists 157 operations, each accepting an idempotency key, and tokens can be read-only or bound to one agent deployment. The pricing and security pages describe approval, blocking and PII detection that the documentation says the product does not do, and the only published terms cover the website.

Respan API + MCP

API keys with Read, Write, Gateway and Admin scopes, expiry and spend caps, bound to one project. 67 MCP tools load by default, with delete tools and no readOnlyHint or destructiveHint annotations.

Prefactor

1. Send requests to https://app.prefactorai.com/api/v1 with Authorization: Bearer <token>. The API host is not on the prefactor.tech or prefactor.ai domains
2. Ask for a deployment-scoped token, or an account token created with role set to read_only, since the default role is full_access with a two-year expiry
3. Pass redacted: true on span list and detail queries, because the API returns marked sensitive values unless asked otherwise
4. On 429 wait for retry_after_ms. Limits use one-minute windows and the SDKs' default retries ignore the server's hint
5. Treat terminate as a request. Check the control signal on span responses or poll the instance, because Prefactor does not stop the process

Respan API + MCP

1. Create a key with only the Read scope for agents that analyse logs. New keys get Read, Write and Gateway by default
2. Set Respan-Enabled-Tools to a short list such as list_traces,get_trace_tree,list_logs. All 67 tools load otherwise
3. Pass filters to list_logs rather than paging through everything. The default window is the last hour
4. Call list_organizations first when results look empty over OAuth. Every tool acts on the active organisation only
5. Append .md to any docs URL for clean Markdown