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 app id, insert key, and url.

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

var insights = new Insights({
  appId: <YOUR_APP_ID>,
  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) {
  // ...
});

adding data

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

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({
  '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:

{
  'appId': 42,
  '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');

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

resources

New Relic docs about inserting custom events and default attributes