Rollbar configuration in the build/deployment process

Setting configurations in the build and deployment process

Many Rollbar configuration settings are known during the build and deployment process. Set up a process so that important Rollbar settings are added as part of the build and deployment process.

Examples of configuration settings commonly added during the build/deployment process

• code_version
• environment
• Custom additional data fields that make responding to errors more efficient
  • container_id
  • cluster_id
  • etc.

Code Version

Configuring the Rollbar SDK code_version setting provides a lot of extra context when an error occurs. The commit number or release tag is generally available in the Continuous Integration tool as an environment variable.

For example:
Jenkins Git Plugin - $GIT_COMMIT
CircleCI - $CIRCLE_SHA1

This can then be used to generate the configuration settings for the application.

Environment

Ensure that the environment setting is being configured as part of the deployment process.

Additional custom data fields

Additional custom data fields can be configured that will be included in every error sent to Rollbar. These may be properties to:

• Help an SRE team to deduce the root cause of an error
• Trigger an automated response to an error

Python Example

This example code shows Rollbar configuration settings being read from a config file at application start.
It includes some addition custom data fields that will be help the Development and SRE teams to respond to an error more efficiently.

import rollbar
import configparser as cp

config = cp.ConfigParser()
config.read('config.ini')
 
# set variable values
ENVIRONMENT = str(cp.get('settings', 'environment'))
ACCESS_TOKEN = str(cp.get('settings', 'access_token'))
CODE_VERSION = str(cp.get('settings', 'code_version'))
CLUSTER_ID = str(cp.get('settings', 'cluster_id'))
CONTAINER_ID = str(cp.get('settings', 'container_id'))


def payload_handler(payload, **kw): 
   # add/remove data just before the error payload is sent

   # add additional custom data to the payload
   payload['deploy_info'] = {}
   payload['deploy_info']['cluster_id] = CLUSTER_ID
   payload['deploy_info']['container_id] = CONTAINER_ID

   return payload
 

rollbar.init(ACCESS_TOKEN, ENVIRONMENT, code_version=CODE_VERSION)
rollbar.events.add_payload_handler(payload_handler)

Other Links

Adding custom additional data to the payload
Trigger Notification based on custom data using the Path filter
Webhooks for custom error response workflow