AppSignal - Notes

• log location
• sample data
  • params key
  • tags key
  • other keys
• custom metric dashboards
  • tags vs. name prefixes

log location

1. https://docs.appsignal.com/elixir/configuration/options.html#option-working_directory_path

https://docs.appsignal.com/support/debugging.html#log-location

The Elixir package will write the log files to the /tmp/appsignal.log log-file.

that is AppSignal log is not created in working_directory_path as I expected.

sample data

1. https://docs.appsignal.com/elixir/instrumentation/tagging.html
2. https://hexdocs.pm/appsignal/Appsignal.Transaction.html#set_sample_data/2

it’s possible to set sample data (aka metadata) for the current transaction (obviously it must have been started beforehand).

some metadata can be added by AppSignal package automatically - say, request params when handling request. in other cases we can set sample data manually with Appsignal.Transaction.set_sample_data/2 helper function.

sample data can be set under different keys - the name of the key matters as it determines the way sample data is displayed in AppSignal UI.

params key

as mentioned above params key is used by AppSignal to set request params for the current transaction so it’s better to avoid using params key when handling request through a controller action because custom metadata might override existing one set by AppSignal package.

in other cases (say, in workers) it’s very convenient to use this key since AppSignal will show supplied payload in dedicated Parameters section - you don’t have to configure anything in AppSignal for it to work.

params key is also special in that send_params option is checked before setting sample data under this key:

# https://github.com/appsignal/appsignal-elixir/blob/master/lib/appsignal/transaction.ex#L263

def set_sample_data(%Transaction{} = transaction, "params", payload) do
  if config()[:send_params] do
    do_set_sample_data(transaction, "params", payload)
  else
    transaction
  end
end

example:

def call(user, date) do
  Appsignal.Transaction.set_sample_data("params", binding())
  # ...
end

note Kernel.binding/0 returns a keyword list [user: user, date: date] - of course it will be properly serialized before being sent to AppSignal but using a map is probably a better choice when setting sample data explicitly (without Kernel.binding/0). also map is used to set tags - see below.

UPDATE (2019-05-20)

for some reason Kernel.binding/0 returns empty keyword list in production - set sample data explicitly using a map:

def call(user, date) do
  Appsignal.Transaction.set_sample_data(
    "params",
    %{user: user, date: date}
  )
  # ...
end

tags key

1. https://docs.appsignal.com/application/link-templates.html

tags key is used to pass tags which can be used later to create links with link templates:

https://docs.appsignal.com/application/link-templates.html

For link templates to work AppSignal needs to have the data necessary to create the links. Start by adding tags to request in your application.

AppSignal will show these links in Overview section.

other keys

IDK how to display sample data set under different keys in AppSignal UI.

custom metric dashboards

tags vs. name prefixes

1. https://docs.appsignal.com/metrics/custom.html#metric-tags
2. https://docs.appsignal.com/metrics/custom-metrics/dashboards.html#dashboard-graph-metrics-tags

use tags instead of specific name prefixes:

https://docs.appsignal.com/metrics/custom.html#metric-tags

Custom metrics sometimes need some context what they’re about. This context can be added as tags so it doesn’t need to be included in the name and you can use the same metric name for different values.

We do not recommend adding this context to your metric names like so: eu.database_size, us.database_size and asia.database_size. This creates multiple metrics that serve the same purpose. The same goes for any dynamic string that builds the metric key, e.g. user_#{user.id}.

# bad
Appsignal.set_gauge("fb.stat.certainty", value)

# good
Appsignal.set_gauge("stat.certainty", value, %{platform: "fb"})