> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://praison.ai/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Step Start • AI Agent SDK

> step_start: An AgentFlow step (or a Route/Parallel/Loop/... pattern) starts.

# step\_start

Method

> This is a method of the [**ContextTraceEmitter**](https://praison.ai/docs/sdk/reference/praisonaiagents/classes/ContextTraceEmitter.md) class in the [**context\_events**](https://praison.ai/docs/sdk/reference/praisonaiagents/modules/context_events.md) module.

An AgentFlow step (or a Route/Parallel/Loop/... pattern) starts.

## Signature

```python theme={"theme":{"light":"vitesse-light","dark":"vitesse-dark"}}
def step_start(name: Optional[str], pattern: Optional[str], node_id: Optional[str], agent: Optional[str]) -> None
```

## Parameters

**name** `Optional[str]` *required*

No description available.

**pattern** `Optional[str]`

No description available.

**node\_id** `Optional[str]`

No description available.

**agent** `Optional[str]`

No description available.

## Uses

* `ContextEvent`
* `time.time`

## Source

> [card] [View on GitHub](https://github.com/MervinPraison/PraisonAI/blob/main/src/praisonai-agents/praisonaiagents/trace/context_events.py#L1276)
>
> `praisonaiagents/trace/context_events.py` at line 1276


This documentation is built and hosted on [Mintlify](https://mintlify.com), a developer documentation platform.