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New Relic's Node.js agent

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This package instruments your application for performance monitoring with New Relic.

In order to take full advantage of this package, make sure you have a New Relic account before starting. Available features, such as slow transaction traces, will vary based on account level.

As with any instrumentation tool, please test before using in production.

Installation

To use New Relic's Node.js agent entails these three steps, which are described in detail below:

  1. To install the agent for performance monitoring, use your favorite npm-based package manager and install the newrelic package into your application:

    $ npm install newrelic

  2. Then, copy the stock configuration file to your program's base folder:

    $ cp ./node_modules/newrelic/newrelic.js ./<your destination>

  3. Now, add your New Relic license key and application/service name to that file:

    /* File: newrelic.js */
    'use strict'
    /**
     * New Relic agent configuration.
     *
     * See lib/config/default.js in the agent distribution for a more complete
     * description of configuration variables and their potential values.
     */
    exports.config = {
      app_name: ['Your application or service name'],
      license_key: 'your new relic license key',
      /* ... rest of configuration .. */
    }
  1. Finally, run your program with the newrelic module loaded first by using node's -r/--require flag.
 $ node -r newrelic your-program.js

If you cannot control how your program is run, you can load the newrelic module before any other module in your program.

    const newrelic = require('newrelic')

    /* ... the rest of your program ... */

ECMAScript Modules

If your application is written with import and export statements in javascript, you are using ES Modules and must bootstrap the agent in a different way.

The New Relic Node.js agent includes experimental support for ES Modules. The agent is reliant on an experimental feature in Node.js in order to appropriately register instrumentation. Until the Node.js API for ES Module Loaders is stable, breaking changes may occur when updating Node.js. Lastly, the ESM loader does not follow the same supported Node.js versions as the agent. The minimum supported version of Node.js is v16.12.0.

Setup

  1. If you rely on a configuration file to run the agent, you must rename the file from newrelic.js to newrelic.cjs so it can be properly loaded. All the contents of the configuration file will behave the same once you rename. See CommonJS modules in ESM for more details.
$ mv newrelic.js newrelic.cjs
  1. To use the newrelic ESM loader, start your program with node and use the --experimental-loader flag and a path to the loader file, like this:
$ node --experimental-loader newrelic/esm-loader.mjs your-program.js

Note: Unlike the CommonJS methods listed above, there are no alternatives to running the agent without the --experimental-loader flag.

Custom Instrumentation

The agent supports adding your own custom instrumentation to ES module applications. In order to load custom instrumentation in an ES module app, you'll need to update your newrelic.cjs file to include the following:

    /* File: newrelic.cjs */
    'use strict'
    /**
     * New Relic agent configuration.
     *
     * See lib/config/default.js in the agent distribution for a more complete
     * description of configuration variables and their potential values.
     */
    exports.config = {
      app_name: ['Your application or service name'],
      license_key: 'your new relic license key',
      api: {
        esm: {
            custom_instrumentation_entrypoint: '/path/to/my/instrumentation.js'
        }
      }
      /* ... rest of configuration .. */
    }

If you do not use a configuration file, then use the environment variable NEW_RELIC_API_ESM_CUSTOM_INSTRUMENTATION_ENTRYPOINT instead.

By updating the configuration, the agent's ES module loader will ensure that your custom instrumentation is added at module load. This is required in ES module applications due to the immutability of module export bindings: we are unable to apply our instrumentation after loading is complete.

We support the following custom instrumentation API methods in ES module apps:

  • newrelic.instrument
  • newrelic.instrumentConglomerate
  • newrelic.instrumentDatastore
  • newrelic.instrumentMessages
  • newrelic.instrumentWebframework

Note that we do not support newrelic.instrumentLoadedModule, for the same issue of immutability mentioned above.

If you want to see an example of how to write custom instrumentation in an ES module app, check out our examples repo for a working demo.

Getting Started

For more information on getting started, check the Node.js docs.

External Modules

There are several modules that can be installed and configured to accompany the Node.js agent:

  • @newrelic/apollo-server-plugin: New Relic's official Apollo Server plugin for use with the Node.js agent.
  • @newrelic/winston-enricher: Provides distributed trace and span information output as JSON-formatted log messages in Winston. This is most commonly used with the New Relic Logs product.
  • @newrelic/pino-enricher: Provides distributed trace and span information output as JSON-formatted log messages in Pino. This is most commonly used with the New Relic Logs product.
  • @newrelic/mysql(Experimental): Standalone instrumentation for mysql2 and mysql2/promise as well as the same instrumentation for mysql within the Node.js agent.
  • @newrelic/next: Provides instrumentation for the Next.js npm package.

There are several modules included within the Node.js agent to add more instrumentation for 3rd party modules:

Usage

Using the API

The newrelic module returns an object with the Node.js agent's API methods attached.

    const newrelic = require('newrelic')

    /* ... */
    newrelic.addCustomAttribute('some-attribute', 'some-value')

You can read more about using the API over on the New Relic documentation site.

Testing

These are the steps to work on core agent features, with more detail below:

  • Fork the agent
  • Install its dependencies
  • Run tests using npm

  1. Fork and clone this GitHub repository:

    $ git clone git@github.com:your-user-name/node-newrelic.git $ cd node-newrelic

  2. Install the project's dependences:

    $ npm install

Then you're all set to start programming.

To run the test suite

  1. Install Docker
  2. Start the Docker services: $ npm run services
  3. Run all the tests using $ npm run test

Available test suites include:

$ npm run unit
$ npm run integration
$ npm run versioned
$ npm run lint
$ npm run smoke

Further Reading

Here are some resources for learning more about the agent:

Support

Should you need assistance with New Relic products, you are in good hands with several support channels.

If the issue has been confirmed as a bug or is a feature request, please file a GitHub issue.

Support Channels

Privacy

At New Relic we take your privacy and the security of your information seriously, and are committed to protecting your information. We must emphasize the importance of not sharing personal data in public forums, and ask all users to scrub logs and diagnostic information for sensitive information, whether personal, proprietary, or otherwise.

We define “Personal Data” as any information relating to an identified or identifiable individual, including, for example, your name, phone number, post code or zip code, Device ID, IP address and email address.

Please review New Relic’s General Data Privacy Notice for more information.

Roadmap

See our roadmap, to learn more about our product vision, understand our plans, and provide us valuable feedback.

Contribute

We encourage your contributions to improve the Node.js agent! Keep in mind when you submit your pull request, you'll need to sign the CLA via the click-through using CLA-Assistant. You only have to sign the CLA one time per project.

If you have any questions, or to execute our corporate CLA, required if your contribution is on behalf of a company, please drop us an email at opensource@newrelic.com.

A note about vulnerabilities

As noted in our security policy, New Relic is committed to the privacy and security of our customers and their data. We believe that providing coordinated disclosure by security researchers and engaging with the security community are important means to achieve our security goals.

If you believe you have found a security vulnerability in this project or any of New Relic's products or websites, we welcome and greatly appreciate you reporting it to New Relic through HackerOne.

If you would like to contribute to this project, review these guidelines.

To all contributors, we thank you! Without your contribution, this project would not be what it is today. We also host a community project page dedicated to New Relic Node Agent.

License

The Node.js agent is licensed under the Apache 2.0 License.

The Node.js agent also uses source code from third-party libraries. You can find full details on which libraries are used and the terms under which they are licensed in the third-party notices document.