Capture network requests and responses in session replay

[pauldambra]

The Monitoring team is currently considering improving PostHog by adding the ability to capture network requests and responses to session recordings / replay.

We already capture network calls that are made and their performance data using the browsers' built-in PerformanceObserver. Adding capture of requests, responses, and status codes would allow our users to more thoroughly understand the behavior of their applications.

Alongside this we would add the ability to sanitize/censor that data so that we reduce the inherent risk of capturing sensitive data.

🗂 Considered Goals

• Add network request and response capture to the web SDK

These goals are being considered by the Monitoring Team and we'd love to hear user feedback, as well as ideas for stretch goals or implementation. Please add to this issue!

If you like this idea, please leave a 👍 or ❤️ reaction on this post to vote for it -- your votes and feedback help us prioritize what to work on next!

[henninghorn]

This sounds like a great feature!

In our use case, we could use the collected network request to inspect if our frontend is structuring requests as expected for the backend, and see if our backend responses are as expected.

[pauldambra]

We're now looking to recruit one or two users to test this feature with us.

We've been running it in production on posthog.com safely

[MaelAbgrall]

Don't know if this is planned, but Sentry has a fantastic way to censor content through a callback before it is sent (https://docs.sentry.io/platforms/javascript/configuration/filtering/)

This lets me easily inspect the objects being sent to sentry and catch/censor any private data.

[pauldambra]

Hey @MaelAbgrall,

We already have that mechanism for replay data in general and have added that for request headers/payload too 👍

Would you like to test it with us?

[MaelAbgrall]

cool!
Why not, but I'm just getting started with posthog, and won't puch to prod until Feb 24, so most of what I will test will be in a dev/staging environment

[pauldambra]

Turned the flag on for you, so you should see them as options in replay config. You can drop feedback direct to the team using https://app.posthog.com/home#panel=support%3Afeedback%3Asession_replay

[MaelAbgrall]

Great thanks, have you got documentation for the callback?

Typescript tells me maskNetworkRequestFn is deprecated, I found maskCapturedNetworkRequestFn in the autocomplete but nothing on your docs

[jape-dev]

This would be super useful feature - would love to test it!

[mohit-gyaan]

Waiting for this useful feature, would love to test it!

[pauldambra]

@mohit-gyaan I've been able to (I think) find your account from your github profile and enabled the flag for you. so you should see them as options in replay config. You can drop feedback direct to the team using https://us.posthog.com/home#panel=support%3Afeedback%3Asession_replay

@jape-dev it wasn't clear what account you're using. Can you share here? Or email paul AT posthog DOT com

[jape-dev]

@pauldambra james AT useairpipe DOT com

[pauldambra]

Awesome, flag is on for you too @jape-dev. Thanks!

[pauldambra]

this has now been added to our feature preview so anyone can opt in to testing it

[mohit-gyaan]

this has now been added to our feature preview so anyone can opt in to testing it

@pauldambra do i have to upgrade the js sdk to latest version for this to work properly ?

[pauldambra]

It's on version > 1.88.x

What version are you running?

[mohit-gyaan]

It's on version > 1.88.x

What version are you running?

We are using 1.93.3, but not able to see payload in network requests.

[pauldambra]

@mohit-gyaan I've checked the account I thought was yours - do you have recordings disabled?

Can you log in to the project you're testing this with and let me know using https://us.posthog.com/home#panel=support%3Asupport%3Asession_replay which links the project to the support ticket so I can take a look.

[pauldambra]

this is now generally available