React Native SDK observability reference

This topic documents how to get started with the LaunchDarkly observability plugin for the React Native SDK.

This LaunchDarkly observability plugin is currently available in Early Access, and APIs are subject to change until a 1.x version is released.

Overview

This topic documents how to get started with the LaunchDarkly observability plugin for the React Native SDK.

The React Native SDK supports the observability plugin for error monitoring, logging, and tracing.

LaunchDarkly’s SDKs are open source. In addition to this reference guide, we provide source, API reference documentation, and a sample application:

Resource	Location
SDK API documentation	Observability plugin API docs
GitHub repository	@launchdarkly/observability-react-native
Published module	npm

Prerequisites and dependencies

This reference guide assumes you are familiar with the LaunchDarkly React Native SDK.

The observability plugin requires React Native SDK version 10.10.0 or later.

The React Native SDK version 10.x is compatible with Expo. Only iOS and Android platforms are supported. Web is not supported. The React Native SDK v10.x is compatible with React Native 0.72, 0.73, 0.74, 0.76, and with Expo 51, Expo

52. Not all React Native and Expo versions have been tested with the observability plugin, as it is still in Early Access.

Get started

Follow these steps to get started:

• Install the plugin
• Initialize the React Native SDK client
• Configure the plugin options
• Explore supported features
• Review observability data in LaunchDarkly

Install the plugin

LaunchDarkly uses a plugin to the React Native SDK to provide observability.

The first step is to make both the SDK and the observability plugin available as dependencies.

Here’s how:

npm, React Native SDK v10.10+

     npm install @launchdarkly/react-native-client-sdk
     npm install @launchdarkly/observability-react-native

Then, import the plugin into your code:

Import, React Native SDK v10.10+

    import { ReactNativeLDClient } from '@launchdarkly/react-native-client-sdk';
    import { Observability, LDObserve } from '@launchdarkly/observability-react-native';

Initialize the client

Next, initialize the SDK and the plugin.

To initialize, you need your LaunchDarkly environment’s mobile key. This authorizes your application to connect to a particular environment within LaunchDarkly. To learn more, read Initialize the client and identify a context in the React Native SDK reference guide.

The React Native observability SDK uses a mobile key. Keys are specific to each project and environment. They are available from Project settings, on the Environments list. To learn more about key types, read Keys.

Mobile keys are not secret and you can expose them in your client-side code without risk. However, never embed a server-side SDK key into a client-side application.

Here’s how to initialize the SDK and plugin:

Initialize, React Native SDK v10.10+

    const client = new ReactNativeLDClient(
        'example-mobile-key',
        AutoEnvAttributes.Enabled,
        {
          plugins: [
            new Observability()
          ],
        }
    );

Configure the plugin options

You can configure options for the observability plugin when you initialize the SDK. The plugin constructor takes an optional object with the configuration details.

Here is an example:

Plugin options, React Native SDK v10.10+

    const client = new ReactNativeLDClient(
        'example-mobile-key',
        AutoEnvAttributes.Enabled,
        {
          plugins: [
            new Observability({
              serviceName: 'example-service',
              // we recommend setting service_version to the latest deployed git SHA
              serviceVersion: 'example-sha'
            })
          ],
        }
    );

For more information on plugin options, read Configuration for client-side observability.

Explore supported features

The observability plugin supports the following features. After the SDK and plugins are initialized, you can access these from within your application:

• Configuration for client-side observability
• Errors
• Logs
• Metrics
• Tracing

Review observability data in LaunchDarkly

After you initialize the SDK and observability plugin, your application automatically starts sending observability data back to LaunchDarkly, including errors and logs. You can review this information in the LaunchDarkly user interface. To learn how, read Observability.