Sentry for Error Logging

Have you ever wondered how large applications can instantly detect errors and address them right away? This is where third-party error logging tools, like Sentry, come into play. Sentry is incredibly useful for developers, as it allows us to catch errors before users even report them—if they report them at all (let’s be honest, most users won’t). Instead, they might just abandon the app and switch to a similar one.

If you’re not familiar with Sentry, here’s how they describe themselves. You can also go to their docs for more information.

Sentry provides end-to-end distributed tracing, enabling developers to identify and debug performance issues and errors across their systems and services.

I won’t be covering the setup process for Sentry since it’s thoroughly documented on their website. Instead, this serves as a personal reference to document and track the key steps I need to follow in case I need to use it again in the future.

When using Sentry, you can track user information in addition to logging errors. Here’s what you need to know and how to set it up.

Identifying User

//id, username, email, ip_address
Sentry.setUser({ email: "john.doe@example.com" });

// Additionally, you can provide arbitrary key/value pairs beyond the reserved names, and the Sentry SDK will store those with the user.
Sentry.setUser({
    user_id: user.id,
    email: user.email,
    role: user.attributes.account_role,
})

Identifying Environment

Sentry.init({ environment: "production" });

// or you can check from the env if its running on what environment
Sentry.init({
    dsn: import.meta.env.VITE_SENTRY_DSN,
    environment: import.meta.env.MODE
});