Record console.log/debug programmatically

[mike-shtil-loop]

Problem statement

I'd like verbose logs in replays, without having to spam each user's actual console.

More info

I'm logging various behind-the-scenes information (async processing initialized/finished, various state changes etc.) via console.debug while developing locally. This is recorded perfectly to Sentry and is available in the console tab.

However for normal users I want to have the same effect, while avoiding actually logging to their console (to reduce spam).

Proposition

I'd like a way to send console events to the replay's console explicitly. Something like Sentry.captureConsole(file ${id} processing started, {level: 'debug'}); Looking at how captureConsoleIntegrationworks, it seems this is done internally viagetCurrentScope().captureMessage()` but it would be great to have a userland feature for this.

Appreciate any input or advice on how to achieve this

[lforst]

Would breadcrumbs work for you? https://docs.sentry.io/platforms/javascript/enriching-events/breadcrumbs/ They should show up in replays without being printed to the actual console.

[mike-shtil-loop]

@lforst unfortunately breadcrumbs only show the last 100 and the UI and searchability aren't a good fit for verbose logs (think thousands of console.debug statements, which I want to see in incident recordings). It's more for route changes and user events.

When I output an actual console.debug, with captureConsoleIntegration: true Sentry replaces and extends the global console then somehow reports them to be displayed on the Sentry replay console UI.

I'm looking for a way to programmatically trigger that same API, to capture my own console.debug directly without an actual console.debug. From the source I see it's something like getCurrentScope().captureMessage() but not sure how to trigger that properly in userland without internal methods. Any advice?

[lforst]

As of now, breadcrumbs are the recommended way to achieve what you are asking for. It's exactly as powerful - if not more powerful than the log messages you are talking about. The log messages are actually what the user would see in the browser console. That's what we're trying to emulate. There is a maxBreadcrumbs setting you can use to bump the limit to above 100.

If captureMessage is really what you want to use you can just call Sentry.captureMessage('foobar'). I need to note that this will create items in you issues feed though and they will also not show up in the console view in replays. Sentry is not really the best solution when it comes to logging.

@billyvg This is an interesting use-case btw. I am unsure though whether it is a good idea to expose an api to log directly to the console tab in replays.

[billyvg]

Yeah we do this internally in the replay SDK, but there is no public API. It could be something we add, though I'm not sure Replay is the best product area to be storing thousands of log statements. e.g. you currently can't search logs on aggregate.