Node.js client library for SignalFx

This is a programmatic interface in JavaScript for SignalFx's metadata and ingest APIs. It is meant to provide a base for communicating with SignalFx APIs that can be easily leveraged by scripts and applications to interact with SignalFx or report metric and event data to SignalFx.

Installation

To install using npm:

$ npm install signalfx --save-dev

Usage

API access token

To use this library, you need a SignalFx API access token, which can be obtained from the SignalFx organization you want to report data into.

Create client

There are two ways to create a client object:

The default constructor SignalFx. This constructor uses Protobuf to send data to SignalFx. If it cannot send Protobuf, it falls back to sending JSON.
The JSON constructor SignalFxJson. This constructor uses JSON format to send data to SignalFx.

var signalfx = require('signalfx');

// Create default client
var client = new signalFx.SignalFx('MY_SIGNALFX_TOKEN' [, options]);
// or create JSON client
var clientJson = new signalFx.SignalFxJson('MY_SIGNALFX_TOKEN' [, options]);

Object options is an optional map and may contains following fields:

enableAmazonUniqueId - boolean, false by default. If true, library will retrieve Amazon unique identifier and set it as AWSUniqueId dimension for each datapoint and event. Use this option only if your application deployed to Amazon
dimensions - object, pre-defined dimensions for each datapoint and event. This object has key-value format { dimension_name: dimension_value, ...}
ingestEndpoint - string, custom url to send datapoints in format http://custom.domain/api/path
apiEndpoint - string, custom url to send events in format http://custom.domain/api/path
timeout - number, sending datapoints timeout in ms (default is 1000ms)
batchSize - number, batch size to group sending datapoints
userAgents - array of strings, items from this array will be added to 'user-agent' header separated by comma

Reporting data

This example shows how to report metrics to SignalFx, as gauges, counters, or cumulative counters.

var signalfx = require('signalfx');

var client = new signalFx.SignalFx('MY_SIGNALFX_TOKEN');

client.send({
           cumulative_counters:[
             {  metric: 'myfunc.calls_cumulative', 
                value: 10,
                timestamp: 1442960607000},
             ...
           ],
           gauges:[
             {  metric: 'myfunc.time', 
                value: 532,
                timestamp: 1442960607000},
             ...
           ],
           counters:[
             {  metric: 'myfunc.calls', 
                value: 42,
                timestamp: 1442960607000},
             ...
           ]});

The timestamp must be a millisecond precision timestamp; the number of milliseconds elapsed since Epoch. The timestamp field is optional, but strongly recommended. If not specified, it will be set by SignalFx's ingest servers automatically; in this situation, the timestamp of your datapoints will not accurately represent the time of their measurement (network latency, batching, etc. will all impact when those datapoints actually make it to SignalFx).

Sending multi-dimensional data

Reporting dimensions for the data is also optional, and can be accomplished by specifying a dimensions parameter on each datapoint containing a dictionary of string to string key/value pairs representing the dimensions:

var signalfx = require('signalfx');

var client = new signalFx.SignalFx('MY_SIGNALFX_TOKEN');

client.send({
          cumulative_counters:[
            { 'metric': 'myfunc.calls_cumulative', 
              'value': 10, 
              'dimensions': {'host': 'server1', 'host_ip': '1.2.3.4'}},
            ...
          ],
          gauges:[
            { 'metric': 'myfunc.time', 
              'value': 532, 
              'dimensions': {'host': 'server1', 'host_ip': '1.2.3.4'}},
            ...
          ],
          counters:[
            { 'metric': 'myfunc.calls', 
              'value': 42, 
              'dimensions': {'host': 'server1', 'host_ip': '1.2.3.4'}},
            ...
          ]});

Sending events

Events can be sent to SignalFx via the sendEvent function. The event type must be specified, and dimensions and extra event properties can be supplied as well.

var signalfx = require('signalfx');

var client = new signalFx.SignalFx('MY_SIGNALFX_TOKEN');

client.sendEvent(
          '[event_type]',
          {
              'host': 'myhost',
              'service': 'myservice',
              'instance': 'myinstance'
          },
          properties={
              'version': 'event_version'})

Examples

Complete code example for Reporting data

var signalfx = require('signalfx');

var myToken = 'MY_SIGNALFX_TOKEN';

var client = new signalFx.SignalFx(myToken);
var gauges = [{
        metric: 'test.cpu',
        value: 10
      }];

var counters = [{
        metric: 'cpu_cnt',
        value:  2
      }];
      
client.send({gauges: gauges, counters: counters});

Complete code example for Sending events

var signalfx = require('signalfx');

var myToken = '[MY_SIGNALFX_TOKEN]';

var client = new signalFx.SignalFx(myToken);

var eventType = '[EVENT-TYPE]'
var dimensions = {
     host: 'myhost',
     service: 'myservice',
     instance: 'myinstance'
  };
var properties = {version: '[EVENT-VERSION]'};

client.sendEvent(eventType, dimensions, properties);

See example/generic_usage.js for a complete code example for Reporting data. Set your SignalFx token and run example

$ node path/to/example/generic_usage.js

dr-strangecode/signalfx-nodejs