Sidekick Node.js Agent

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Table of Contents

1. What is Sidekick?
   • Sidekick Actions
2. Sidekick Node.js Agent
3. Usage
4. Build the agent
5. Official Sidekick Agents
6. Resources
7. Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
8. Contact

What is Sidekick?

Sidekick is a live application debugger that lets you troubleshoot your applications while they keep on running.

Add dynamic logs and put non-breaking breakpoints in your running application without the need of stopping & redeploying.

Sidekick Open Source is here to allow self-hosting and make live debugging more accessible. Built for everyone who needs extra information from their running applications.

Sidekick Actions:

Sidekick has two major actions; Tracepoints & Logpoints.

• A tracepoint is a non-breaking remote breakpoint. In short, it takes a snapshot of the variables when the code hits that line.
• Logpoints open the way for dynamic(on-demand) logging to Sidekick users. Replacing traditional logging with dynamic logging has the potential to lower stage sizes, costs, and time for log searching while adding the ability to add new logpoints without editing the source code, redeploying, or restarting the application.

Supported runtimes: Java, Python, Node.js

To learn more about Sidekick features and capabilities, see our web page.

Learn More »

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Sidekick Node.js Agent

Sidekick Node.js agent allows you to inject tracepoints (non-breaking breakpoints) and logpoints dynamically to capture call stack snapshots (with variables) and add log messages on the fly without code modification, re-build and re-deploy. So it helps you, your team, and your organization to reduce MTTR (Minimum Time to Repair/Resolve).

To achieve this, Sidekick Node.js agent makes use of V8's inspector API.

The advantages of Sidekick over classical APM solutions is that, Sidekick

• can debug and trace any location (your code base or 3rd party dependency) in your application, not just the external (DB, API, etc ...) calls like APM solutions
• has zero overhead when you don't have any tracepoint or logpoint but APMs have always
• doesn't produce too much garbage data because it collects data only at the certain points you specified as long as that point (tracepoint/logpoint) is active

Usage

npm install @runsidekick/sidekick-agent-nodejs

Docs

There are two way to integrate Sidekick agent to your application.

Integrate Agent with Environment Variable

You can easily integrate Sidekick using below environment variables.

• set SIDEKICK_APIKEY environment variable with your Sidekick api key.
• set NODE_OPTIONS environment variable with '-r @runsidekick/sidekick-agent-nodejs/dist/bootstrap'

Integrate Agent with Code

You can easily integrate Sidekick adding below code block to top of your project.

JS example

constSidekickDebugger=require('@runsidekick/sidekick-agent-nodejs');SidekickDebugger.start({apiKey: '<Your_Api_Key>'});
...

TS example

import*asSidekickDebuggerfrom'@runsidekick/sidekick-agent-nodejs';SidekickDebugger.start({apiKey: '<Your_Api_Key>'});
...

Configs

Config	Requirement	Environment Variable	Default
apiKey	Required	SIDEKICK_APIKEY	None
logLevel	Optional	SIDEKICK_AGENT_LOG_LEVEL	info
disable	Optional	SIDEKICK_AGENT_DISABLE	false
brokerHost	Optional	SIDEKICK_AGENT_BROKER_HOST	Sidekick broker address
brokerPort	Optional	SIDEKICK_AGENT_BROKER_PORT	Sidekick broker port
brokerClient	Optional	SIDEKICK_AGENT_BROKER_CLIENT	Logged in user
applicationId	Optional	SIDEKICK_AGENT_APPLICATION_ID	Generated by agent
applicationName	Optional	SIDEKICK_AGENT_APPLICATION_NAME	Empty string
applicationInstanceId	Optional	SIDEKICK_AGENT_APPLICATION_INSTANCE_ID	Generated by agent
applicationVersion	Optional	SIDEKICK_AGENT_APPLICATION_VERSION	Empty string
applicationStage	Optional	SIDEKICK_AGENT_APPLICATION_STAGE	Empty string
applicationTag	Optional	SIDEKICK_AGENT_APPLICATION_TAG	None
maxFrames	Optional	SIDEKICK_AGENT_MAX_FRAMES	20
maxExpandFrames	Optional	SIDEKICK_AGENT_MAX_EXPAND_FRAMES	1
maxProperties	Optional	SIDEKICK_AGENT_MAX_PROPERTIES	10
maxParseDepth	Optional	SIDEKICK_AGENT_MAX_PARSE_DEPTH	3
propertyAccessClassification	Optional	SIDEKICK_AGENT_PROPERTY_ACCESS_CLASSIFICATION	ENUMERABLE-OWN
scriptPrefix	Optional	SIDEKICK_AGENT_SCRIPT_PREFIX	None
rejectOnStartup	Optional	SIDEKICK_AGENT_REJECT_ON_STARTUP	false
captureFrameDataReductionCallback	Optional		None
logMessageDataReductionCallback	Optional		None
errorCollectionEnable	Optional	SIDEKICK_AGENT_ERROR_COLLECTION_ENABLE	false
errorCollectionEnableCaptureFrame	Optional	SIDEKICK_AGENT_ERROR_COLLECTION_CAPTURE_FRAME	false

Valid Config Values

• propertyAccessClassification (SIDEKICK_AGENT_PROPERTY_ACCESS_CLASSIFICATION) configuration can take one of following values:
  • ENUMERABLE-OWN (default value)
  • ENUMERABLE-OWN-AND-ENUMERABLE-PARENT
  • ENUMERABLE-OWN-AND-NON-ENUMERABLE-OWN
  • ENUMERABLE-OWN-AND-NON-ENUMERABLE-OWN-ENUMERABLE-PARENT

Build

• npm run clean-build:all

Official Sidekick Agents

• Java
• Node.js
• Python

Resources:

• Documentation
• Community
• Discord
• Contributing
• Sidekick Main Repository

Questions? Problems? Suggestions?

To report a bug or request a feature, create a GitHub Issue. Please ensure someone else has not created an issue for the same topic.

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Contact

Reach out on the Discord. A fellow community member or Sidekick engineer will be happy to help you out.

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