rudder-sdk-js
v2.48.23
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RudderStack JavaScript SDK
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| :warning: This package is deprecated. Please switch to the latest @rudderstack/analytics-js package for improved features and support. For more details, visit link. | | :---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
RudderStack JavaScript SDK
The JavaScript SDK lets you track customer event data from your website and send it to your specified destinations via RudderStack.
For detailed documentation on the RudderStack JavaScript SDK, click here.
Table of Contents
- Installing the JavaScript SDK
- Identifying your users
- Tracking user actions
- The
ready
API - Self-hosted control plane
- Adding your own integrations
- Usage in Chrome Extensions
- Usage in Serverless Runtimes
| IMPORTANT: We have deprecated the service worker export from RudderStack JavaScript SDK NPM package and moved it to a separate package. If you still wish to use it for your project, refer to @rudderstack/analytics-js-service-worker package. | | :---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
Installing the JavaScript SDK
To integrate the JavaScript SDK with your website, place the following code snippet in the <head>
section of your website.
<script type="text/javascript">
!function(){var e=window.rudderanalytics=window.rudderanalytics||[];e.methods=["load","page","track","identify","alias","group","ready","reset","getAnonymousId","setAnonymousId"],e.factory=function(t){return function(){e.push([t].concat(Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments)))}};for(var t=0;t<e.methods.length;t++){var r=e.methods[t];e[r]=e.factory(r)}e.loadJS=function(e,t){var r=document.createElement("script");r.type="text/javascript",r.async=!0,r.src="https://cdn.rudderlabs.com/v1.1/rudder-analytics.min.js";var a=document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0];a.parentNode.insertBefore(r,a)},e.loadJS(),
e.load(<WRITE_KEY>,<DATA_PLANE_URL>),
e.page()}();
</script>
The above snippet lets you integrate the SDK with your website and load it asynchronously to keep your page load time unaffected.
To load rudder-analytics.js
on to your page synchronously, you can refer to the minified or non-minified versions of the code in the following sections:
Minified code
<script>
rudderanalytics=window.rudderanalytics=[];for(var methods=["load","page","track","identify","alias","group","ready","reset","getAnonymousId","setAnonymousId"],i=0;i<methods.length;i++){var method=methods[i];rudderanalytics[method]=function(a){return function(){rudderanalytics.push([a].concat(Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments)))}}(method)}rudderanalytics.load(<WRITE_KEY>,<DATA_PLANE_URL>),rudderanalytics.page();
</script>
<script src="https://cdn.rudderlabs.com/v1.1/rudder-analytics.min.js"></script>
Non-minified code
<script>
rudderanalytics = window.rudderanalytics = [];
var methods = [
'load',
'page',
'track',
'identify',
'alias',
'group',
'ready',
'reset',
'getAnonymousId',
'setAnonymousId',
];
for (var i = 0; i < methods.length; i++) {
var method = methods[i];
rudderanalytics[method] = (function (methodName) {
return function () {
rudderanalytics.push([methodName].concat(Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments)));
};
})(method);
}
rudderanalytics.load(YOUR_WRITE_KEY, DATA_PLANE_URL);
//For example,
//rudderanalytics.load("1Qb1F3jSWv0eKFBPZcrM7ypgjVo", "http://localhost:8080");
rudderanalytics.page();
</script>
<script src="https://cdn.rudderlabs.com/v1.1/rudder-analytics.min.js"></script>
In all the above versions, there is an explicit page
call at the end. This is added to ensure that whenever the SDK loads in a page, a page
call is sent. You can remove this call completely or modify it with the extra page properties to suit your requirement. You can also add page
calls in your application in places not tied directly to page load, e.g., virtual page views, page renders on route change such as in SPAs, etc.
Write key and data plane URL
To integrate and initialize the JavaScript SDK, you will need the source write key and the data plane URL.
- To get the source write key, follow this guide.
- To get the data plane URL, follow this guide.
Alternative installation using NPM
Although we recommend using the snippets mentioned above to use the JavaScript SDK with your website, you can also use this NPM module to package RudderStack directly into your project.
To install the SDK via npm, run the following command:
npm install rudder-sdk-js --save
Note that this NPM module is only meant to be used for a browser installation. If you want to integrate RudderStack with your Node.js application, refer to the RudderStack Node.js repository.
IMPORTANT: Since the module exports the related APIs on an already-defined object combined with the Node.js module caching, you should run the following code snippet only once and use the exported object throughout your project:
import * as rudderanalytics from "rudder-sdk-js";
rudderanalytics.ready(() => {
console.log("we are all set!!!");
});
rudderanalytics.load(<WRITE_KEY>, <DATA_PLANE_URL>);
export { rudderanalytics };
You can also do this with ES5 using the require
method, as shown:
var rudderanalytics = require("rudder-sdk-js");
rudderanalytics.load(<WRITE_KEY>, <DATA_PLANE_URL>);
exports.rudderanalytics = rudderanalytics;
For destinations where you don't want the SDK to load the third-party scripts separately, modify the load
call as shown:
rudderanalytics.load(<YOUR_WRITE_KEY>, <DATA_PLANE_URL>, {loadIntegration: false})
For more information on the
load()
method, refer to the detailed JavaScript SDK documentation.
A few important things to note:
- The SDK expects the destination global queue or function for pushing the events is already present for the particular destination/s.
- Currently,
loadIntegration
is supported only for Amplitude and Google Analytics. - The JavaScript SDK expects
window.amplitude
andwindow.ga
to be already defined by the user separately for the sending the events to these destinations.
Exported APIs
The APIs exported by the module are:
load
ready
identify
alias
page
track
group
reset
getAnonymousId
setAnonymousId
Sample implementations
Refer to the following projects for a detailed walk-through of the above steps:
Supported browser versions
| Browser | Supported Versions | | :-------------- | :--------------------- | | Safari | v7 or later | | IE | v11 or later | | Edge | v80 or later | | Mozilla Firefox | v47 or later | | Chrome | v54 or later | | Opera | v43 or later | | Yandex | v19.10 or later |
If the SDK does not work on the browser versions that you are targeting, verify if adding the browser polyfills to your application solves the issue.
Identifying users
The identify
call lets you identify a visiting user and associate them to their actions. It also lets you record the traits about them like their name, email address, etc.
A sample identify()
call is shown below:
rudderanalytics.identify(
'12345',
{
email: '[email protected]',
},
{
page: {
path: '',
referrer: '',
search: '',
title: '',
url: '',
},
},
() => {
console.log('in identify call');
},
);
In the above example, the user-related information like the userId
and email
along with the contextual information is captured.
There is no need to call
identify()
for anonymous visitors to your website. Such visitors are automatically assigned ananonymousId
.
For more information on how to use the identify
call, refer to the JavaScript SDK documentation.
Tracking user actions
The track
call lets you record the customer events, i.e. the actions that they perform, along with any associated properties.
A sample track
call is shown below:
rudderanalytics.track(
'test track event GA3',
{
revenue: 30,
currency: 'USD',
user_actual_id: 12345,
},
() => {
console.log('in track call');
},
);
In the above example, the track
method tracks the user event ‘test track event GA3’ and information such as the revenue
, currency
, anonymousId
.
You can use the
track
method to track various success metrics for your website like user signups, item purchases, article bookmarks, and more.
The ready
API
There are cases when you may want to tap into the features provided by the end-destination SDKs to enhance tracking and other functionalities. The JavaScript SDK exposes a ready
API with a callback
parameter that fires when the SDK is done initializing itself and the other third-party native SDK destinations.
An example is shown in the following snippet:
rudderanalytics.ready(() => {
console.log('we are all set!!!');
});
For more information on the other supported methods, refer to the JavaScript SDK APIs.
Self-Hosted control plane
If you are using a device mode destination like Heap, FullStory, etc., the JavaScript SDK needs to fetch the required configuration from the control plane.
If you are self-hosting the control plane using the RudderStack Control Plane Lite utility, your load
call will look like the following:
rudderanalytics.load(<WRITE_KEY>, <DATA_PLANE_URL>, {
configUrl: <CONTROL_PLANE_URL>,
});
More information on how to get the
CONTROL_PLANE_URL
can be found here.
| For detailed technical documentation and troubleshooting guide on the RudderStack’s JavaScript SDK, check out our docs. | | :--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
Adding your own integrations
You can start adding integrations of your choice for sending the data through their respective web (JavaScript) SDKs.
How to build the SDK
Look for run scripts in the
package.json
file for getting the browser minified and non-minified builds. The builds are updated in thedist
folder of the directory. Among the others, some of the important ones are:npm run build:browser
: This outputs dist/cdn/legacy/rudder-analytics.min.js.npm run build:package
: This outputs dist/npm folder that contains the npm package contents.
We use rollup to build our SDKs. The configuration for it is present in
rollup-configs
folder.
Usage in Chrome Extensions
RudderStack JS SDK can be used in Chrome Extensions with manifest v3, both as a content script (via the JavaScript SDK package) or as a background script service worker (via the service worker package).
For examples and specific details look into Chrome Extensions Usage
Usage in Serverless Runtimes
RudderStack JS SDK service worker can be used in serverless runtimes like Cloudflare Workers or Vercel Edge functions.
For examples and specific details look into:
License
This project is licensed under the Elastic License 2.0. See the LICENSE.md file for details. Review the license terms to understand your permissions and restrictions.
If you have any questions about licensing, please contact us or refer to the official Elastic licensing page.
Contribute
We invite you to contribute to this project. For more information on how to contribute, please see here.
Contact us
For more information on any of the sections covered in this readme, you can contact us or start a conversation on our Slack channel.