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Sending custom events

Read time: 15 minutes
Last edited: Apr 12, 2024

Overview

This topic explains how to send custom events using the track feature in your SDK. The track feature is available on both client-side and server-side SDKs.

Newer versions of LaunchDarkly SDKs replace users with contexts

A context is a generalized way of referring to the people, services, machines, or other resources that encounter feature flags in your product. Contexts replace another data object in LaunchDarkly: "users." To learn more, read Contexts.

Creating contexts and evaluating flags based on them is supported in the latest major versions of most of our SDKs. For these SDKs, the code samples on this page include the two most recent versions.

Tracking events

The track feature lets you record actions your customers take in your application as events. You can connect these events to metrics for use in experiments. To learn more, read Metrics.

This is an example of an event within a custom metric for use in Experimentation:

A custom metric event kind.
A custom metric event kind.

To learn more about the events SDKs send to LaunchDarkly, read Analytics events.

You can view events in the Debugger page.

Details about each SDK's configuration are available in the SDK-specific sections below.

  • Client-side SDKs
  • Server-side SDKs
  • Edge SDKs

Client-side SDKs

This feature is available in the following client-side SDKs:

.NET (client-side)

Expand .NET (client-side) code sample

The Track method lets you record actions your users take on your site. This lets you record events that take place on your server.

Here's how:

client.Track("metric-key-123abc");

You can also attach custom data to your event by passing an extra parameter to Track, using the LdValue class to represent any value that can be encoded in JSON. To learn how, read LdClient.Track.

Android

Expand Android code sample

The track method lets you record actions your end users take in your application. You can also attach custom JSON data to your event by passing an extra JsonElement parameter to track.

Here's how:

client.track("metric-key-123abc", data);

To learn more, read track.

You can also attach custom data to your event by calling TrackData or TrackMetric.

C++ (client-side)

Expand C++ (client-side) code sample

The Track method allows you to record custom events in your application with LaunchDarkly:

client.Track("event-key-123abc");

To learn more, read Track.

Electron

Expand Electron code sample

Evaluating flags, either with variation() or with allFlags(), produces analytics events which you can observe on your LaunchDarkly Debugger page. The initial user you specify in the client constructor, as well as any user you specify with identify(), produces an analytics event which is how LaunchDarkly receives your user data.

You can also explicitly send an event with any data you like using the track function:

client.track('custom-event-key-123abc', { customProperty: someValue });

Flutter

Expand Flutter code sample

The track method lets you record actions your end users take in your application. You can also attach custom data to your event by passing an extra LDValue parameter or num parameter to track.

Here's how:

client.track('metric-key-123abc', data: LDValue.objectBuilder().addBool("clicked-button", true).build());

To learn more, read track.

iOS

Expand iOS code sample

In the iOS SDK, track is a custom event added to the LDClient event store. A client app can set a tracking event to allow client customized data analysis. After an app has called track, the app cannot remove the event from the event store. LDClient periodically transmits events to LaunchDarkly based on the frequency set in LDConfig.eventFlushInterval. The LDClient must be started and online.

After the SDK's event store is full, the SDK discards new events until the event store is cleared when it reports events to LaunchDarkly. Configure the size of the event store using LDConfig.eventCapacity. The first parameter, key, is the key for the event. The SDK does nothing with the key, which can be any string the client app sends. The second parameter, data, is the data for the event. The data parameter is optional. The SDK does nothing with the data, which can be any valid JSON item as an LDValue instance.

Optionally, you can add a metricValue parameter of type Double to track in Swift or as a required parameter to the overloaded track method in Objective-C.

let data: LDValue = ["some-custom-key": "some-custom-value", "another-custom-key": 7]
try LDClient.get()!.track(key: "MY_TRACK_EVENT_NAME", data: data)

To learn more, read the generated API documentation for Swift or Objective-C.

JavaScript

Expand JavaScript code sample

You can record custom events using the track function. Call track with the event key to record custom conversion/binary metrics.

Metric keys and event keys are different

LaunchDarkly automatically generates a metric key when you create a metric. You can use the metric key to identify the metric in API calls. To learn more, read Creating metrics.

Custom conversion/binary and custom numeric metrics also require an event key. You can set the event key to anything you want. Adding this event key to your codebase lets your SDK track actions customers take in your app as events. To learn more, read Sending custom events.

The second argument is optional. It assists with observational analytics for Data Export destinations. With Data Export, the second argument gives additional information without saving the data to the LaunchDarkly context.

To call track:

client.track('event-name-123abc', { customProperty: someValue });

To learn how to attach custom data to your event with optional parameters, read track.

Tracking click and page view events in JavaScript



If you've defined click or page view metrics in LaunchDarkly, they'll be sent automatically once the client has been initialized. You do not have to do anything else with the client to send click or page view metrics.

To learn more about click and page view metrics, read Experimentation.

Single-page apps

The SDK automatically handles URL changes made by the HTML5 history API or by changing the URL hash fragment, and will trigger click and page view events correctly.

Analytics in JavaScript


Evaluating flags, either with variation() or with allFlags(), produces analytics events which you can observe on your LaunchDarkly Debugger page. The initial context you specify in the client constructor, as well as any context you specify with identify(), produces an analytics event which is how LaunchDarkly receives your context data.

You can also explicitly send an event with any data you like using the track function. The second argument is optional. For example:

client.track('your-event-name', { customProperty: someValue });

If you define click conversion or page view conversion metrics in LaunchDarkly, the SDK sends them automatically after you have initialized the client. You do not have to do anything else with the client to send click or page view goals. The SDK will generate page view events correctly regardless of how the URL is changed, such as by the HTML5 history API, by changing the URL hash fragment, etc.

To learn more about metrics, read Metrics.

Do Not Track and ad blocking software

The JavaScript-based SDKs respect the Do Not Track events header. If an end user has Do Not Track enabled in their browser, the SDK does not send analytics events for flag evaluations or metrics to events.launchdarkly.com. To learn more, read Browser privacy settings block analytic events to LaunchDarkly.


In addition, ad blocking software may block analytics events from being sent. This does not impact feature flag evaluations. To learn more about the events SDKs send to LaunchDarkly, read Analytics events.

Node.js (client-side)

Expand Node.js (client-side) code sample

The track method lets you record actions your users take, giving them any event key you want. This lets you record events that take place client-side. The current user data automatically accompany the event.

Metric keys and event keys are different

LaunchDarkly automatically generates a metric key when you create a metric. You can use the metric key to identify the metric in API calls. To learn more, read Creating metrics.

Custom conversion/binary and custom numeric metrics also require an event key. You can set the event key to anything you want. Adding this event key to your codebase lets your SDK track actions customers take in your app as events. To learn more, read Sending custom events.

Here's an example:

client.track('something-happened');
client.track('something-happened-with-custom-data', { someData: 2 });

To learn how to attach custom data to your event with optional parameters, read track.

React Native

Expand React Native code sample

The track method lets you record actions your customers take in your app. You can also attach custom JSON data to your event by passing an extra parameter to track.

Availability

This parameter is available in v2.1.0 and later.

Optionally, you can add a metricValue parameter to the track method if you are using the latest version of Experimentation.

Here's how:

client.track('metric-flag-key-123abc', false);
client.track('metric-flag-key-with-data-456def', { someData: 'value' });

To learn how to attach custom data to your event with optional parameters, read track.

Roku

Expand Roku code sample

The track method lets you record custom events in your application with LaunchDarkly.

Here's how:

' without optional data
launchDarkly.track("event-key-123abc")
' with optional data
launchDarkly.track("event-key-123abc", {"customField": 123})
' with optional numeric metric
launchDarkly.track("event-key-123abc", invalid, 52.3)

Server-side SDKs

This feature is available in the following server-side SDKs:

.NET (server-side)

Expand .NET (server-side) code sample

The Track method lets you record actions customers take on your site. This lets you record events that take place on your server. In LaunchDarkly, you can tie these events to metrics in Experimentation.

Here's an example:

client.Track("metric-key-123abc", context);

You can also attach custom data to your event by passing an extra parameter to Track. To do this, use the LdValue type, which can contain any kind of data supported by JSON. You can also pass another parameter for a custom metric value.

Apex

Expand Apex code sample

The track method lets you record actions your users take in your you do application. You can also attach custom JSON data to your event by passing an LDValue parameter to track, or a custom metric value by passing a Double parameter.

Here's how:

client.track(user, 'metric-key-123abc', 52.3, LDValue.of('my value'));

To learn how to attach custom data to your event with extra parameters, read Other methods.

C++ (server-side)

Expand C++ (server-side) code sample

The Track function lets you record events that a specific context performed. Optionally, you can include additional data associated with the event.

Here's how:

/* track the event */
client.Track(context, "metric-key-123abc");
/* track the event and associate data with it */
client.Track(context, "metric-key-123abc", 42)

To learn more, read Track() in Client.

Erlang

Expand Erlang code sample

The track function lets you record actions customers take on your site. This lets you record events that take place on your server.

Here's how:

ldclient:track(<<"metric-key-123abc">>, #{key => <<"context-key-123abc">>}, #{data => <<"example">>})

To learn more, read track.

You can also attach a JSON object containing arbitrary data to your event, or a custom metric value. To learn how, read track_metric.

Go

Expand Go code sample

The Track methods allow you to record actions your customers take on your site. This lets you record events that take place on your server.

In this example, we use TrackEvent to send an event called completed-purchase. This event can correspond to a metric with the same key.

Here's how:

client.TrackEvent("completed-purchase", context)

You can also attach custom data to your event by calling TrackData, which takes an extra parameter. Or, if you are using experimentation, you can specify a numeric metric with TrackMetric.

Haskell

Expand Haskell code sample

The track function lets you record actions customers take on your site. This lets you record events that take place on your server.

Here's how:

track client context "metric-key-123abc" Nothing Nothing

You can also attach a JSON object containing arbitrary data to your event, or a custom metric value. To learn how, read track.

Java

Expand Java code sample

The track method lets you record actions end users take on your site. This lets you record events that take place on your server.

Here's how:

client.track("metric-key-123abc", context);

You can also attach custom JSON data to your event with an alternate version of track, trackData. You can set the data to any value that can be represented in JSON. To learn more, read LDValue.

If you are using Experimentation, you can specify a numeric metric with trackMetric.

Lua

Expand Lua code sample

The track method lets you record events that a specific context performed. Optionally, you can include additional data associated with the event.

Here's how:

client:track("metric-key-123abc", context);

You can also attach an object containing arbitrary data to your event. To learn how, read track.

Node.js (server-side)

Expand Node.js (server-side) code sample

The track method lets you record actions that end users take on your site. This lets you record events that take place on your server.

Here's how:

client.track('metric-key-123abc', context);

You can also attach custom data to your event with optional parameters. To learn how, read track.

PHP

Expand PHP code sample

The track method lets you record actions your end users take on your site. This lets you record events that take place on your server.

Here's how:

$client->track("metric-key-123abc", $context);

You can also attach custom data, including anything that can be marshaled to JSON, to your event by passing an extra parameter to track. To learn how, read track().

Python

Expand Python code sample

The track method lets you record actions end users take on your site. This lets you record events that take place on your server.

Here's how:

ldclient.get().track("metric-key-123abc", context)

You can also attach custom data to your event with optional parameters. To learn how, read track.

Ruby

Expand Ruby code sample

The track method lets you record actions your contexts take on your site. This lets you record events that take place on your server.

Here's how:

client.track("metric-key-123abc", context)

You can also attach an extra hash containing arbitrary data to your event. To learn how, read track.

Rust

Expand Rust code sample

The track methods allow you to record actions your end users take on your site. This lets you record events that take place on your server.

In this example, we use track_event to send an event called completed-purchase. This event can correspond to a metric with the same key.

Here's how:

client.track_event(context, "completed-purchase");

You can also attach custom data to your event by calling track_data, which takes an extra parameter. Or, if you are using experimentation, you can specify a numeric metric with track_metric.

Edge SDKs

Edge SDKs can be used with one of the LaunchDarkly client-side SDKs as follows:

  • The edge SDK gets all flags at the edge for a given context, and bootstraps them onto a cached payload
  • The client-side SDK initializes the bootstrapped payload
  • The client-side SDK evaluates the flags and sends events back to LaunchDarkly

Some edge SDKs support sending events directly. This means that using a client-side SDK is not necessary. It also enables Experimentation use cases if you are using the edge SDK in conjunction with a server-side SDK. To learn more, read Experimentation events.

You need to configure the edge SDK to enable sending events. To learn more, read Configuration.

This feature is available in the following edge SDKs:

Cloudflare

Expand Cloudflare code sample

Sending events is available in Cloudflare SDK version 2.3.0 and later. You must explicitly enable sending events in your configuration.

The track method lets you record actions that end users take in your application.

Here's how:

client.track('metric-key-123abc', context);

You can also attach custom data to your event with optional parameters.

Here's how:

const exampleData = { customProperty: 'someValue' };
const metricValue = 10;
client.track('metric-key-123abc', context, exampleData, metricValue);

When you are working with an edge SDK, you must also call flush after sending any events:

executionContext.waitUntil(
client.flush((err, res) => {
console.log(`flushed events result: ${res}, error: ${err}`);
}),
);

To learn more, read Flushing events.

Vercel

Expand Vercel code sample

Sending events is available in Vercel SDK version 1.2.0 and later. You must explicitly enable sending events in your configuration.

The track method lets you record actions that end users take in your application.

Here's how:

client.track('metric-key-123abc', context);

You can also attach custom data to your event with optional parameters.

Here's how:

const exampleData = { customProperty: 'someValue' };
const metricValue = 10;
client.track('metric-key-123abc', context, exampleData, metricValue);

When you are working with an edge SDK, you must also flush the events before your worker exits to ensure that they are sent back to LaunchDarkly. If you call flush inside the waitUntil method, then flushing events will not impact the handler's response time. To learn more, read the Vercel documentation on waitUntil.

Here's how:

context.waitUntil(
client.flush((err, res) => {
console.log(`flushed events result: ${res}, error: ${err}`);
}),
);

To learn more, read Flushing events.