node-insights

Submit and query New Relic Insights data.

installation

npm install node-insights --save

usage

Create an Insights instance and pass in an object with your New Relic account id, insert key, and query key.

For more information about NewRelic Insights Docs : https://docs.newrelic.com/docs/insights/new-relic-insights

configuration

The constructor to the insights object accepts an object with the following properties:

• accountId (string, required) - your newrelic insights account id
• insertKey (string, required if you are going to add or send data) - your newrelic insert key
• queryKey (string, required if you are going to query data) - your newrelic query key
• timerInterval (integer, default=10000) - the timer interval (in milliseconds) that is used for sending data
• maxPending (integer, default=1000) - the maximum number of items held in the queue before being sent
• defaultEventType (string, default='data') - when adding data, you can specify the eventType that is sent to New Relic. If you don't specify the eventType, the defaultEventType is used.
• enabled (boolean, default=true) - enable/disable the sending of insights data.
• gzip (boolean, default=false) - enable/disable the sending of insights data zipped via gzip.

NOTE: insertKey, queryKey, and accountId can all be found in one's NewRelic dashboard.

var Insights = require('node-insights');

var insights = new Insights({
  insertKey: '<YOUR_INSERT_KEY>',
  queryKey: '<YOUR_QUERY_KEY>',
  accountId: '<YOUR_ACCOUNT_ID>'
});

insights.add({
  someInt: 42,
  someArray: [ 'apples', 'peaches', 'bananas' ],
  someObject: {
    'foo': 'bar'
  }
});

insights.query('SELECT count(*) FROM data', function(err, responseBody) {
  // ...
});

// you can construct NRQL from objects using a similar pattern to Rails ActiveRecord, etc.
var q = { select : 'count(*)', from: 'PageView',
          where  : { userAgentOS: ['Windows', 'Mac'] },
          since  : '1 day ago', facet: 'countryCode'};


// nrql == "SELECT count(*) FROM PageView WHERE userAgentOs IN ('Windows', 'Mac') SINCE 1 day ago FACET countryCode"
var nrql = insights.nrql(q);

// will generate nrql from q and run normally
insights.query(q, function(err, responseBody) {
    // ...
})

adding data

By default, adding data will start the send timer (unless the enabled property is false). Data is held in the queue until either the number of items exceeds maxPending or the send timer goes off.

Call .finish() after the final call to .add() in order to stop the send timer after the queue is flushed.

NOTE: you may want to include an appId in your data. See here

data format

New Relic Insights expects key/value pairs. As a convenience, the Insights object will flatten Object and Array data.

Adding this data object:

insights.add({
  'appId': 42,
  'purchase': {
    "account":3,
    "amount":259.54
  }
}, 'purchase');

Actually flattens out and is sent like this:

{
  'appId': 42,
  'eventType': 'purchase',
  'purchase.account':3,
  'purchase.amount':259.54
}

Array data flattens out too:

  insights.add({
    'randomWords': [ "card", "bean", "chair", "box" ]
  });

but it is less pretty:

{
  'eventType': 'data',
  'randomWords.0': 'card',
  'randomWords.1': 'bean',
  'randomWords.2': 'chair',
  'randomWords.3': 'box'
}

event types

When you add data, you can specify the eventType that is sent to New Relic. If you don't specify the eventType, the defaultEventType (from the initial config is used). The defaultEventType defaults to the string 'data'. Awesome!

insights.add({ ... }, 'my-custom-event-type');

timestamps

By default Insights will use the time data is sent to the server as the timestamp. Because this library buffers data for up to 10s, we will automatically add a timestamp when you call insights.add().

If you provide your own timestamp (keeping in mind the date has to be within a day of the Insight server's time), the library will not overwrite the user provided one.

querying data

To retrieve data from Insights you will need to use your query key to execute NRQL queries.

insights.query(nrqlQuery, function(err, responseBody) {
  // ...
});

tests

Run the tests

grunt test

docs

Run js-doc and generate the documentation

grunt docs

resources

New Relic docs about inserting custom events and default attributes