josegonzalez/go-instrument

Opinionated library for instrumenting go apps using InfluxDB and NewRelic

go-instrument

This package exposes a simple and opinionated library for instrumenting go apps using InfluxDB and NewRelic. At its core, it is just a struct holding references to both services and exposing an unified API to deliver metrics to both services at once

Installation

Install it using the go get command:

go get github.com/seatgeek/go-instrument

Usage

The simplest way to use this library is by getting a default InstrumentsConfig using the DefaultConfig() function:

import (
	gi "github.com/seatgeek/go-instrument"
)

instruments := gi.DefaultConfig("default_app_name")

You can now use the this config struct as a middleware for any negroni-based server:

app := negroni.New(instruments)

// or
app := newgroni.New(...)
app.Use(instruments)

The instruments will automatically wrap the middleware stack and deliver metrics to NewRelic.

Getting the instruments during a request

It is possible to get a hold of the instruments while handling a request. You can do this as a means to track segments of your code or use the NoticeError() function to track problems during the runtime.

func statusHandler(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
	instruments := gi.GetInstruments(r)
	
	err := riskyOperation()
	instruments.NoticeError(err)
}

Tracking segments with timers

It is often useful to track the performance of certain important parts for your code. You can do so by using the timer functions. For example:

func findFriends(i gi.Instruments) {
	defer i.StartTimer("friendship", "findFriends").End()
}

The first argument is category, and it is used to group similar metrics together. The second argument is the name of the metric, usually just the "action" you are performing.