API Reference

You can access agent API after initializing the agent:

var apm = require('elastic-apm-js-base').init(...)

apm.setUserContext(context)

Call this method to enrich collected performance data and errors with information about the user.

The given context argument must be an object and can contain the following properties (all optional):

The provided user context is stored under context.user in Elasticsearch on both errors and transactions.

apm.setCustomContext(context)

Call this to enrich collected errors and transactions with any information that you think will help you debug performance issues or errors.

The provided custom context is stored under context.custom in Elasticsearch on both errors and transactions.

The given context argument must be an object and can contain any property that can be JSON encoded.

apm.setTags(tags)

Set tags on transactions and errors.

Tags are key/value pairs that are indexed by Elasticsearch and therefore searchable (as opposed to data set via setCustomContext()). You can set multiple tags.

Arguments:

A filter can be used to modify the APM payload before it is sent to the apm-server. This can be useful in for example redacting sensitive information from the payload:

apm.addFilter(function (payload) {
  if (payload.errors) {
    payload.errors.forEach(function (error) {
      error.exception.message = error.exception.message.replace('secret', '[REDACTED]')
    })
  }
  if (payload.transactions) {
    payload.transactions.forEach(function (tr) {
      tr.spans.forEach(function (span) {
        if (span.context && span.context.http && span.context.http.url) {
          var url = new URL(span.context.http.url)
          if (url.searchParams.get('token')) {
            url.searchParams.set('token', 'REDACTED')
          }
          span.context.http.url = url.toString()
        }
      })
    })
  }
  // Make sure to return the payload
  return payload
})

apm.startTransaction(name, type)

Starts and returns a new transaction.

Arguments:

Use this method to create a custom transaction.

apm.startSpan(name, type)

Starts and returns a new span on the current transaction.

Arguments:

apm.setInitialPageLoadName(name)

Arguments:

Use this method to set the name of the page-load transaction that is sent automatically on page load event.

apm.getCurrentTransaction()

Use this method to get the current active transaction. If there is no active transaction it will return undefined.

apm.captureError(error)

Arguments:

Use this method to manually send an error to APM Server:

apm.captureError(new Error('<error-message>'))

A transaction groups multiple spans in a logical group.

To start a transaction, you need to call apm.startTransaction().

To see an example of using custom transactions, see the Custom Transactions article.

The name of the transaction.

Can be used to set or overwrite the name of the transaction (visible in the performance monitoring breakdown).

The type of the transaction.

The timestamp of the transaction. If the transaction timestamp is not provided (the default behaviour), it will be set by the apm-server (v6.3+). You can, however, set the timestamp on the client (using new Date().toISOString()), but you should be aware that the timestamp will reflect the client’s local time which might not always be accurate.

transaction.end()

Ends the transaction. If the transaction has already ended, nothing happens.

transaction.mark(key)

Marks the current point in time relative to the start of the transaction. Use this method to mark significant events that happen while the transaction is active.