Rollbar React SDK

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React features to enhance using Rollbar.js in React Applications.

This SDK provides a wrapper around the base Rollbar.js SDK in order to provide an SDK that matches the intention of how to build React Apps with a declarative API, features for the latest React API like hooks and ErrorBoundaries, as well as simplify using Rollbar within a React SPA.

Key benefits of using Rollbar React are:

• Telemetry: The telemetry timeline provides a list of “breadcrumbs” events that can help developers understand and fix problems in their client-side javascript. Learn more about telemetry.
• Automatic error grouping: Rollbar aggregates Occurrences caused by the same error into Items that represent application issues. Learn more about reducing log noise.
• Advanced search: Filter items by many different properties. Learn more about search.
• Customizable notifications: Rollbar supports several messaging and incident management tools where your team can get notified about errors and important events by real-time alerts. Learn more about Rollbar notifications.

In Beta

It is currently in a public Beta release right now as we push towards a 1.0 release that will have all of the features we want to provide full capability for using React SDK in your production apps. We expect a 1.0 release to come in the next month.

• Key benefits of using Rollbar React are:
  • In Beta
• Setup Instructions
  • Prerequisites
  • Install Rollbar React SDK
• Usage and Reference
  • Simplest Usage Possible
  • Using with Next.js App Router
• Components
  • Provider Component
    • Configuration Only Usage
    • Instance Usage
    • React Native Usage
  • ErrorBoundary Component
    • Simple Usage
    • Pass props to control behavior
    • Pass a Fallback UI
  • RollbarContext Component
    • Basic Usage
    • Using with React Router
• Functions
  • historyContext to create history.listener
    • Basic historyContext usage
    • Controlling historyContext behavior with options
• Hooks
  • Reliance on Provider
  • useRollbar hook
  • useRollbarContext hook
  • useRollbarPerson hook
  • useRollbarCaptureEvent hook

Setup Instructions

Prerequisites

These instructions provide an addendum to the Rollbar.js Setup Instructions.

After following those 2 steps, you will be ready.

Install Rollbar React SDK

To install with npm:

npm install @rollbar/react rollbar

To install with yarn:

yarn add @rollbar/react rollbar

To install by adding to package.json, add the following to your project's package.json file:

  …
  "dependencies": {
    "@rollbar/react": "^0.8.0",
    "rollbar": "^2.24.0",
    …
  }
  …

then run either using npm or yarn (or other package manager):

npm install
# OR
yarn install

Usage and Reference

The React SDK is very new and has not been given the full documentation treatment we expect to get from Rollbar Docs, but that will be coming shortly and a direct link will be put here for your reference.

In the meantime, the basic usage reference is available below.

Simplest Usage Possible

To get you started quickly, here is an example that will get you started right away by providing the easiest and simplest usage possible:

import React from 'react';
import { Provider, ErrorBoundary } from '@rollbar/react'; // <-- Provider imports 'rollbar' for us

// same configuration you would create for the Rollbar.js SDK
const rollbarConfig = {
  accessToken: 'POST_CLIENT_ITEM_ACCESS_TOKEN',
  environment: 'production',
};

export default function App() {
  return (
    {/* Provider instantiates Rollbar client instance handling any uncaught errors or unhandled promises in the browser */}
    <Provider config={rollbarConfig}>
      {/* ErrorBoundary catches all React errors in the tree below and logs them to Rollbar */}
      <ErrorBoundary>
        // all other app providers and components - Rollbar will just work
        …
      </ErrorBoundary>
    </Provider>
  );
};

Using with Next.js App Router

The first step to using Rollbar with the Next.js App Router is to configure your Rollbar instance.

import Rollbar from 'rollbar';

const baseConfig = {
  captureUncaught: true,
  captureUnhandledRejections: true,
  environment: process.env.NODE_ENV,
};

export const clientConfig = {
  accessToken: process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_POST_CLIENT_ITEM_TOKEN,
  ...baseConfig,
};

export const serverInstance = new Rollbar({
  accessToken: process.env.POST_SERVER_ITEM_TOKEN,
  ...baseConfig,
});

We suggest you create a single instance for use server side, to be certain there are not more than one, and a config to use in your client side components. React Server Components limit you to passing simple objects as props from Server Components to Client Components. The config object can be used by the Rollbar Provider to construct your Rollbar instance.

There's a fully functional example that showcases the many ways in which you can integrate Rollbar into your modern web-app leveraging React Server Components and the Next.js App Router.

Components

The following components are available as named imports from @rollbar/react.

Provider Component

The Provider component is used to wrap your React App so an instance of Rollbar will be made available within your React tree.

This is a common pattern in React using a custom React Context that is available to the Components and hooks from this SDK library.

Configuration Only Usage

The simplest way to use the Provider is to provide a configuration as the config prop which will instantiate an instance of Rollbar for you and provide that to its child tree:

import React from 'react';
import { Provider } from '@rollbar/react';

// same configuration you would create for the Rollbar.js SDK
const rollbarConfig = {
  accessToken: 'POST_CLIENT_ITEM_ACCESS_TOKEN',
  environment: 'production',
};

export function App(props) {
  return <Provider config={rollbarConfig}>…</Provider>;
}

Instance Usage

Sometimes you may need to instantiate an instance of Rollbar before adding it to your App tree. In that case use the instance prop to pass it to the Provider like this:

import React from 'react';
import Rollbar from 'rollbar';
import { Provider } from '@rollbar/react';

// same configuration you would create for the Rollbar.js SDK
const rollbarConfig = {
  accessToken: 'POST_CLIENT_ITEM_ACCESS_TOKEN',
  environment: 'production',
};

const rollbar = new Rollbar(rollbarConfig);

export function App(props) {
  return <Provider instance={rollbar}>…</Provider>;
}

This method will also work with the global Rollbar instance when using the Rollbar.init(…) method.

React Native Usage

Rollbar provides a React Native SDK which also wraps the Rollbar.js to provide React Native capabilities based on that specific environment.

To use the Rollbar React SDK with the React Native SDK, pass the instance that it generates to the Provider's instance prop, like this:

import React from 'react';
import { Client } from 'rollbar-react-native';
import { Provider } from '@rollbar/react';

const rollbarClient = new Client('POST_CLIENT_ITEM_ACCESS_TOKEN');

export function App(props) {
  return <Provider instance={rollbarClient.rollbar}>…</Provider>;
}

ErrorBoundary Component

Rollbar's React SDK provides a new ErrorBoundary component which implements the interface for React's Error Boundaries introduced in React 16.

The ErrorBoundary is used to wrap any tree or subtree in your React App to catch React Errors and log them to Rollbar automatically.

The ErrorBoundary relies on the Provider above for the instance of Rollbar, so it will utilize whatever configuration has been provided.

Simple Usage

You can add an ErrorBoundary component to the top of your tree right after the Provider with no additional props and it will just work:

import React from 'react';
import { Provider, ErrorBoundary } from '@rollbar/react';

// same configuration you would create for the Rollbar.js SDK
const rollbarConfig = {
  accessToken: 'POST_CLIENT_ITEM_ACCESS_TOKEN',
  environment: 'production',
};

export function App(props) {
  return (
    <Provider config={rollbarConfig}>
      <ErrorBoundary>…</ErrorBoundary>
    </Provider>
  );
}

Pass props to control behavior

The ErrorBoundary provides several props that allow customizing the behavior of how it will report errors to Rollbar.

These props take either a value or a function that will be invoked with the error and info from the Error Boundaries API's componentDidCatch method (i.e. signature is (error, info)).

import React from 'react';
import { Provider, ErrorBoundary, LEVEL_WARN } from '@rollbar/react';

// same configuration you would create for the Rollbar.js SDK
const rollbarConfig = {
  accessToken: 'POST_CLIENT_ITEM_ACCESS_TOKEN',
  environment: 'production',
};

export function App(props) {
  return (
    <Provider config={rollbarConfig}>
      <ErrorBoundary
        level={LEVEL_WARN}
        errorMessage="Error in React render"
        extra={(error, info) =>
          info.componentStack.includes('Experimental')
            ? { experiment: true }
            : {}
        }
      >
        …
      </ErrorBoundary>
    </Provider>
  );
}

Pass a Fallback UI

You may also include a Fallback UI to render when the error occurs so that the User does not experience a broken/blank UI caused during the render cycle of React.

It can accept a value that is a React Component

import React from 'react';
import { Provider, ErrorBoundary, LEVEL_WARN } from '@rollbar/react';

// same configuration you would create for the Rollbar.js SDK
const rollbarConfig = {
  accessToken: 'POST_CLIENT_ITEM_ACCESS_TOKEN',
  environment: 'production',
};

const ErrorDisplay = (
  { error, resetError }, // <-- props passed to fallbackUI component
) => (
  <div>
    <h1>A following error has occured:</h1>
    <p>{error.toString()}</p>
  </div>
);

export function App(props) {
  return (
    <Provider config={rollbarConfig}>
      <ErrorBoundary level={LEVEL_WARN} fallbackUI={ErrorDisplay}>
        …
      </ErrorBoundary>
    </Provider>
  );
}

RollbarContext Component

Use the RollbarContext component to declaratively set the context value used by Rollbar.js when it's sending any messages to Rollbar.

This works for your ErrorBoundary from above or any other log or message sent to Rollbar while the RollbarContext is mounted on the tree.

Like ErrorBoundary above, RollbarContext relies on a Provider for an instance of a Rollbar.js client.

Basic Usage

To use the RollbarContext you must provide the context prop, a String that is used to set the context used by Rollbar.js to the value while mounted.

import React from 'react';
import { RollbarContext } from '@rollbar/react';

function HomePage() {
  return <RollbarContext context="home">…</RollbarContext>;
}

Using with React Router

It's useful to set the context in Rollbar associated with areas of your application. On the server it's usually set when a specific page is requested. For SPAs like React Apps, using RollbarContext with your Router is one way to achieve the same result.

Here is an example of using RollbarContext with [React Router] if you have a top level set of routes:

import React from 'react';
import { Router, Switch, Route } from 'react-router-dom';
import { RollbarContext } from '@rollbar/react';
import { About, ContactDetails, ContactsList } from './pages';

const Routes = () => (
  <Router>
    <Switch>
      <Route path="/about">
        <RollbarContext context="/about">
          <About />
        </RollbarContext>
      </Route>
      <Route path="/contacts/:id">
        <RollbarContext context="contacts/details">
          <ContactDetails />
        </RollbarContext>
      </Route>
      <Route path="/contacts">
        <RollbarContext context="contacts">
          <ContactsList />
        </RollbarContext>
      </Route>
    </Switch>
  </Router>
);

export default Routes;

Here's another example of using RollbarContext within a component that manages its own route:

import React from 'react';
import { Route } from 'react-router-dom';
import { RollbarContext } from '@rollbar/react';

export default function About(props) {
  return (
    <Route path="/about">
      <RollbarContext context="/about">…</RollbarContext>
    </Route>
  );
}

Functions

The following functions are available as named imports from @rollbar/react.

historyContext to create history.listener

A lot of SPAs and React Apps will use the history package to handle browser history. The historyContext function is a helper that creates a valid listener function to receive history changes and use those to change the Rollbar.js context.

historyContext is a factory function used to create a proper history.listen callback that will work for v4 and v5 of the history package.

Basic historyContext usage

The historyContext factory function requires an instance of Rollbar.js to wrap in order to create the listener callback function.

By default, if no options (see below) are provided, all history updates will update the context for Rollbar using the location.pathname as the value.

import Rollbar from 'rollbar';
import { createBrowserHistory } from 'history';
import { Provider } from '@rollbar/react';

// same configuration you would create for the Rollbar.js SDK
const rollbarConfig = {
  accessToken: 'POST_CLIENT_ITEM_ACCESS_TOKEN',
  environment: 'production',
};

const rollbar = new Rollbar(rollbarConfig);

const history = createBrowserHistory();

history.listen(historyContext(rollbar));

Controlling historyContext behavior with options

The historyContext factory function accepts options as a 2nd argument that allow you to control the behavior of how and when the context will be set for the Rollbar.js client.

Use the formatter option to provide a function that will receive the history change event and return a String that you would like to be set as the context for Rollbar.

The signature is formatter(location, action): String where location is history.location and action is history.action.

The other option is filter which you can provide to tell the historyContext listener you create to control which history updates will change the context for Rollbar. All truthy values will tell the listener to make the change. Any falsy values will skip the update.

The signature is filter(location, action): Boolean where location is history.location and action is history.action.

Here's an example of using both:

import Rollbar from 'rollbar';
import { createBrowserHistory } from 'history';
import { Provider } from '@rollbar/react';

// same configuration you would create for the Rollbar.js SDK
const rollbarConfig = {
  accessToken: 'POST_CLIENT_ITEM_ACCESS_TOKEN',
  environment: 'production',
};

const rollbar = new Rollbar(rollbarConfig);

const ROUTE_PARAMS_RE = /\/\d+/g;

const historyListener = historyContext(rollbar, {
  // optional: default uses location.pathname
  formatter: (location, action) =>
    location.pathname.replace(ROUTE_PARAMS_RE, ''),
  // optional: true return sets Rollbar context
  filter: (location, action) => !location.pathname.includes('admin'),
});
const unlisten = history.listen(historyListener);

Hooks

The following hooks are available as named imports from @rollbar/react for use in Functional Components making use of the React Hooks API introduced in React 16.8.

Reliance on Provider

All of these hooks below require there to be a Provider in the React Tree as an ancestor to the component using the hook.

useRollbar hook

To consume the Rollbar.js instance directly from the Provider in your React Tree and make use of the client API within your [Functional Component], use the useRollbar hook which will return the instance from the currently scoped React Context.

Here is a basic example:

import { useRollbar } from '@rollbar/react';

function ContactDetails({ contactId }) {
  const rollbar = useRollbar(); // <-- must have parent Provider
  const [contact, setContact] = useState();

  useEffect(async () => {
    try {
      const { data } = await getContactFromApi(contactId);
      setContact(data.contact);
    } catch (error) {
      rollbar.error('Error fetching contact', error, { contactId });
    }
  }, [contactId]);

  return <div>…</div>;
}

useRollbarContext hook

As an alternative to the RollbarContext component, you can use the useRollbarContext hook in your [Functional Component] to set the context in the Rollbar.js client provided by the Provider above in the React Tree.

Here's an example of using it in several components:

// src/pages/HomePage.js
import { useRollbarContext } from '@rollbar/react';

function HomePage(props) {
  useRollbarContext('home#index');

  return <div>…</div>;
}

// src/pages/UsersPage.js
import { useRollbarContext } from '@rollbar/react';
import UserTable from '../components/users/UserTable';

function UsersPage(props) {
  useRollbarContext('users#list');

  return <UserTable data={props.users} />;
}

// src/pages/UserDetailsPage.js
import { useRollbarContext } from '@rollbar/react';
import UserDetails from '../components/users/UserDetails';

function UserDetailsPage(props) {
  useRollbarContext('users#details');

  return <UserDetails user={props.user} />;
}

useRollbarPerson hook

It's very usefull in Rollbar to log the identity of a person or user using your App for 2 major reasons:

1. It allows you to know exactly who has been affected by an item or error in your App
2. It allows Rollbar to tell you the impact a given item or error is having on your users

To make it convenient and easy to set the identity of a person in your React App, the @rollbar/react package has the userRollbarPerson hook.

To use it, simply pass an Object that has keys and values used to identify an individual user of your App, and for any future events or messages logged to Rollbar will include that person data attached to the log.

Here is a simple example of using it once the current user has been determined:

import { useState } from 'react';
import { useRollbarPerson } from '@rollbar/react';
import LoggedInHome from './LoggedInHome';
import LoggedOutHome from './LoggedOutHome';

function Home() {
  const [currentUser, setCurrentUser] = useState();
  useRollbarPerson(currentUser);

  useEffect(() => {
    (async () => {
      const user = await Auth.getCurrentUser();
      setCurrentUser(user);
    })();
  });

  if (currentUser != null) {
    return <LoggedInHome />;
  }

  return <LoggedOutHome />;
}

useRollbarCaptureEvent hook

Rollbar.js already provides automated Telemetry with the default configuration autoInstrument: true in the client which will capture useful telemetry events and data for you.

To provide more breadcrumbs useful for identifying the cause of an item or error, you can add your own capture events that will be included in the Telemetry of an item in Rollbar with the useRollbarCaptureEvent hook.

The useRollbarCaptureEvent hook is designed to capture a new event in your [Functional Component] any time the metadata or level you provide to the hook changes. On rerenders, no event is captured if there is not a change to the references provided to those 2 arguments (utilizing the dependencies array arg underneath within the call to the built-in React useEffect hook).

Here is an example of using useRollbarCaptureEvent in the render cycle of a [Functional Component] to send a telemetry event related to the data that will be rendered in the component

import { useEffect, useState } from 'react';
import { useRollbar, useRollbarCaptureEvent, LEVEL_INFO } from '@rollbar/react';

function BookDetails({ bookId }) {
  const rollbar = useRollbar(); // <-- must have ancestor Provider, same with useRollbarCaptureEvent
  const [book, setBook] = useState();

  useEffect(async () => {
    try {
      const { data } = await getBook(bookId);
      setBook(data.book);
    } catch (error) {
      rollbar.error('Error fetching book', error, { bookId }); // <-- use rollbar to log errors as normal
    }
  }, [bookId]);

  useRollbarCaptureEvent(book, LEVEL_INFO); // <-- only fires when book changes

  return <div>…</div>;
}