Adding tags to a request

Use tagging to supply extra context on errors and performance incidents. This can help to add information that is not already part of the request, such as the session data, headers, environment data or parameters. Tags can also be used to filter on samples within an incident to find all errors for a specific user, or slow pages for a specific locale.

Tags can be set wherever the current transaction or span is accessible. We recommend calling it before you application code runs in the request, such as in a callback. The list of tags for the sample can be found in the tags box on an error and [performance] (https://appsignal.com/redirect-to/app?to=performance) incident detail page.

Using link templates it's possible to use the tag data to link back to your app, such as the admin panel for the signed in user. See "Link 1" and "Link 2" as examples in the screenshot below.

Ruby

With the AppSignal for Ruby gem, use the Appsignal.tag_request (or Appsignal.tag_job) helper methods to add tags to error and performance samples.

You can use Appsignal.tag_request wherever the current transaction is accessible, we recommend calling it before you application code runs in the request, such as in a before_action using Rails.

before_action do
  Appsignal.tag_request(
    :user_id => current_user.id,
    :stripe_customer_id => stripe_customer_id,
    :locale => I18n.locale,
    :default_locale => I18n.default_locale
  )
end

Limitations

Tags that do not meet these limitations are dropped without warning.

• The tag key must be a String or Symbol.
• The tagged value must be a String, Symbol or Integer.
• The length of the tag key and tagged value must be less than 100 characters.
• Nested hash values are not supported for tags, please use custom data instead.

# Unsupported: hash value type is not supported
Appsignal.tag_request(
  :i18n => {
    :locale => I18n.locale,
    :default_locale => I18n.default_locale
  }
)

Elixir

Use the Appsignal.Span.set_sample_data function to supply extra context on errors and performance samples. Use the "tags" sample key for the function to add tags to the span.

Appsignal.Span.set_sample_data(
  Appsignal.Tracer.root_span,
  "tags",
  %{
    locale: "en",
    user_id: user_id,
    stripe_customer_id: stripe_customer_id,
    locale: locale,
    default_locale: default_locale
  }
)

Last call is leading

The set_sample_data helper can be called multiple times, but only the last value will be retained. When the code is run below:

Appsignal.Span.set_sample_data(Appsignal.Tracer.root_span, "tags", %{locale: "en"})
Appsignal.Span.set_sample_data(Appsignal.Tracer.root_span, "tags", %{user: "bob"})
Appsignal.Span.set_sample_data(Appsignal.Tracer.root_span, "tags", %{locale: "de"})

it will result in the following tags being stored:

%{
  locale: "de"
}

Limitations

Tags that do not meet these limitations are dropped without warning.

• The tag key must be a String or Atom.
• The tagged value must be a String, Atom or Integer.
• Nested map values are not supported for tags, please use custom data instead.

# Unsupported: map value type is not supported
Appsignal.Span.set_sample_data(
  Appsignal.Tracer.root_span,
  "tags",
  %{
    i18n: %{
      locale: "en_GB",
      default_locale: "en_US"
    }
  }
)

Node.js

Use the Span's set function to add tags to spans for errors and performance samples.

const tracer = appsignal.tracer();
const span = tracer.currentSpan();
span.set("user_id", user_id);
span.set("stripe_customer_id", stripe_customer_id);
span.set("locale", locale);
span.set("default_locale", default_locale);

Limitations

Tags that do not meet these limitations are dropped without warning.

• Tags must be added to the root span. If added to a child span, they will be ignored.
• The tag key must be a String.
• The tagged value must be a String, Number or Boolean.
• Nested object values are not supported for tags, please use custom data instead.

const tracer = appsignal.tracer();
const span = tracer.currentSpan();
 
# Unsupported: object value type is not supported
span.set("i18n", { locale: "en_GB", default_locale: "en_US" });

Next steps

• Adding sample data to a request - step in this guide

• Tagging and Sample data guide - the start of this guide
• Tagging and Sample data topic - topic on tagging
• Getting started guides - Guides overview