Trakerr - Javascript API Client

Get your application events and errors to Trakerr via the Trakerr API.

You can send both errors and non-errors (plain log statements, for example) to Trakerr with this API.

Overview

The 3-minute guide is primarily oriented around sending errors or warnings and does not let you specify additional parameters. Option-4 in the detailed integration guide describes how you could send a non-error (or any log statement) along with additional parameters.

The SDK takes performance impact seriously and all communication between the SDK <=> Trakerr avoids blocking the calling function. The SDK also applies asynchronous patterns where applicable.

A Trakerr Event can consist of various parameters as described here in TrakerrApi.AppEvent. Some of these parameters are populated by default and others are optional and can be supplied by you.

Since some of these parameters are common across all event's, the API has the option of setting these on the TrakerrClient instance (described towards the bottom) and offers a factory API for creating AppEvent's.

Key AppEvent Properties

Log Level, Event Type and Classification

• Log Level This enum specifies the logging level to be used for this event ('debug','info','warning','error' or 'fatal')
• Event Type This defines the type of event or logger name. This is automatically set for errors.
• Classification This is a user settable property that controls how the events are grouped. Defaults to 'Issue'. Set this to a different value to group this event in a different group.

Event User, Event Session and Correlation ID

• Event User This is the user that is associated with this event. This can be any user data or could be encrypted if privacy is required.
• Event Session This is any session specific information associated with this event.
• Cross App Correlation ID This is an additional ID that can be used for cross-application correlation of the same event.

Operation Time

• Operation Time This property in milliseconds measures the operation time for this specific event.

Custom properties and segments

In addition to the above, you can use custom properties and segments to send custom event, performance data. These can then be visualized in Trakerr's dashboards.

Requirements

Supports running in a NodeJS environment. Also supports running within any Javascript supported Browser with the following dependencies.

• superagent.js
• stacktrace.js

3-minute Integration Guide

HTML/Javascript: 3-minute guide

Include the following in your HTML

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/superagent/3.5.2/superagent.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/stacktrace.js/1.3.1/stacktrace.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/trakerr-com/trakerr-javascript@1.1.0/dist/trakerr.min.js"></script>
<script>function initTrakerr() {  var c = new TrakerrClient('<api-key>', '1.0', 'production'); c.handleExceptions(false); } initTrakerr();</script>

You can replace 1.0 and production with the values of app version and deployment stage of your codebase.

This will catch all errors using javascript's onerror and send them to trakerr. While this code is fast and clean, we recommend using the Detailed Integration Guide below to send more useful information about errors.

NodeJS: 3-minute guide

If you use NPM, install as follows:

npm install --only=prod --save trakerr-com/trakerr-javascript

If you use Bower, install as follows:

bower install https://github.com/trakerr-io/trakerr-javascript

Install global handler

var TrakerrClient = require('trakerr-javascript'); //This is only necessary for NPM use.
var client = new TrakerrClient('<api-key>',   //Your API key
                               '1.0',         //Your app version
                               'production'); //Custom deployment stage of your code.

//any error thrown with throw new Error('...'); will now be sent to Trakerr
client.handleExceptions(false);

Angular: 3-minute guide

Include the dependencies and initialize the global client variable with your API key:

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/superagent/3.5.2/superagent.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/stacktrace.js/1.3.1/stacktrace.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/trakerr-com/trakerr-javascript@1.1.0/dist/trakerr.min.js"></script>
<!-- initialize the client globally -->
<script> trakerr = new TrakerrClient('<api-key>',   //Your API key
                                     '1.0',         //Your app version
                                     'production'); //Custom deployment stage of your code.
</script>

And in the angular module, install an $exceptionHandler as shown below:

angular.module('your app').factory('$exceptionHandler', ['$window', function ($window) {
    //Replace value within quotes with your API key instead

    // create a new event
    var appEvent = $window.trakerr.createAppEvent();

    return function (exception, cause) {
        // ...

        $window.trakerr.sendError(exception, "Error", function(error, data, response) {
            // ... handle or log response if needed ...

            $log.error(exception, cause);//Relogs the error on the console
        });
    };
}]);

Detailed Integration Guide

This library works with both node apps and browser apps seamlessly.

Create a client

In your script, the first thing before sending an event is to create a client. For npm apps, you may use require, but other options are also listed below.

var TrakerrClient = require('trakerr-javascript'); //This is only necessary for NPM use.
var client = new TrakerrClient('<api-key>',                //Your API key
                               '<app version here>',       //Your app version
                               '<deployment stage here>'); //Custom deployment stage of your code.

Option-1: Handle exceptions with a global handler

Calling handleExceptions will send any following error to Trakerr using the onerror handler. If you are calling this from the browser, the shouldDie flag is not relevent to you; and this will catch all unhandled thrown errors. If you are not calling the library from the browser, read about handleException's shouldDie flag.

// Option-1: Add a global exception handler,
//any error thrown with throw new Error('...'); will now be sent to Trakerr
client.handleExceptions(false);

Option-2: Send error to Trakerr programmatically

This will allow you to catch and send a specific error to trakerr, also allowing you to handle it afterwards.

    try {
        ....

    } catch(err) {
        // send it to Trakerr
        client.sendError(err);
    }

Option-3: Send error to Trakerr programmatically and populate some custom properties on the event

Passing a function to sendError will allow you to quickly populate the properties of the created AppEvent. For AppEvent's properties, see it's docs in the generated folder. The function must take in a parameter.

    try {
        ....
    } catch(err) {
        // send it to Trakerr
        client.sendError(err, "Error", function(event) {

            // set some custom properties on the event
            event.contextOperationTimeMillis = 1000
            event.eventUser = "jake@trakerr.io"
            event.eventSession = "20"
            event.contextDevice = "pc"
            event.contextAppSku = "mobile"
            event.contextTags = ["client", "frontend"]

            event.customProperties = {
                customString: {
                    customData1: "Some data"
                }
            };
        });
    }

Option-4: Create and send event (including non-errors) programmatically

You may also send non-errors in a similar fashion from the sendEvent method (as opposed to the sendError method). We recommend that you pass this one a function, and fill it out with custom properties useful to you.

try {
    // create a new event
    var appEvent = client.createAppEvent();
    
    // ... populate any member data ...

    // send it to Trakerr
    client.sendEvent(appEvent, function(error, data, response) {
        if(error) {
            console.error('Error Response: ' + error + ', data = ' + data + ', response = ' +
            JSON.stringify(response));
        } else {
            console.log('Response: data = ' + data + ', response = ' + JSON.stringify(response));
        }
    });
} catch(err) {
    console.err("Error: " + err);
}

We recommend with the above samples 2-4 you populate the EventUser and EventSession fields of app event with the pertinant data to help you identify issues. Option 1 sends no custom data at this time.

The TrakerrClient Constructor

The TrakerrClient's constructor initalizes the default values to all of TrakerrClient's properties.

var exports = function TrakerrClient(apiKey,
                                     contextAppVersion,
                                     contextDevelopementStage)

The TrakerrClient module has a lot of exposed properties. The benefit to setting these immediately after after you create the TrakerrClient is that AppEvent will default it's values against the TrakerClient that created it. This way if there is a value that all your AppEvents uses, and the constructor default value currently doesn't suit you; it may be easier to change it in TrakerrClient as it will become the default value for all AppEvents created after. A lot of these are populated by default value by the constructor, but you can populate them with whatever string data you want. The following table provides an in depth look at each of those.

If you're populating an app event directly, you'll want to take a look at the AppEvent properties as they contain properties unique to each AppEvent which do not have defaults you may set in the client.

Name	Type	Description	Notes
apiKey	string	API key generated for the application
contextAppVersion	string	Application version information.	Default value: 1.0
contextDevelopmentStage	string	One of development, staging, production; or a custom string.	Default Value: development
contextEnvLanguage	string	Constant string representing the language the application is in.	Default value: JavaScript
contextEnvName	string	Name of the interpreter the program is run on.	Default Value: JavaScript
contextEnvVersion	string	"Version" of JavaScript this program is running on. While this field is useful in other languages, since each browser or server impements their own features, sometimes not along version specification lines, the default value instead provided another useful value that may come close to being a version.	Default Value: navigator.userAgentif navigator is defined, undefined otherwise
contextEnvHostname	string	Hostname or ID of environment.	Default value: os.hostname() in a non-browser enviroment, undefined otherwise.
contextAppOS	string	OS the application is running on.	Default value: OS name (ie. Windows, MacOS).
contextAppOSVersion	string	OS Version the application is running on.	Default value: OS Version.
contextAppOSBrowser	string	An optional string browser name the application is running on.	Defaults to the browser name if the app is running from a browser.
contextAppOSBrowserVersion	string	An optional string browser version the application is running on.	Defaults to the browser version if the app is running from a browser.
contextDataCenter	string	Data center the application is running on or connected to.	Defaults to 'undefined'
contextDataCenterRegion	string	Data center region.	Defaults to 'undefined'
contextTags	Array.	Array of string tags you can use to tag your components for searching.,	Defaults to 'undefined'
contextAppSKU	string	Application SKU.	Defaults to 'undefined'

Documentation for AppEvent

• TrakerrApi.AppEvent

Developer Notes

Dependencies: grunt.js (if you want to build from source)

Installation via NPM: To install off a branch which may have experimental features, you can use:

npm install --only=prod --save trakerr-com/trakerr-javascript#<branch name>

Building from Source: If you want to build from source for the browser, use the following command:

npm install [--save] trakerr-com/trakerr-javascript

or

npm install [--save] trakerr-com/trakerr-javascript#<branch name>

you can then use grunt to compile your own minified version of the code. The grunt task we use can be executed with:

grunt build

in the folder with gruntFile.js. If you wish to modify or fork our code, simply run grunt build after modifying the code to try it out in your browser locally.