The objective of this work is to develop an adaptive help system based on interaction traces. It consists in considering the traces left by the users as knowledge sources that the system can use in order to generate adapted help to the target user. In this context, we have proposed models for representing trace, user profile and adaptation knowledge. We have also proposed a method of knowledge extraction from a trace-based management system (TBMS) representing the activity traces of several users. The application domain of this work is the help in using an e-learning platform in the context of the VCIel training.