Apache SkyWalking Node.js Agent

The Apache SkyWalking Node.js Agent reports distributed traces to an Apache SkyWalking OAP server. It instruments supported Node.js libraries without changes to their source code.

Requirements

• Node.js 20 or later.
• A compatible Apache SkyWalking OAP server. See the agent and OAP compatibility guide.

Install

npm install skywalking-backend-js

Quick start

Start the agent before loading the modules that it must instrument:

import agent from 'skywalking-backend-js';

agent.start({
  serviceName: 'checkout-service',
  collectorAddress: '127.0.0.1:11800',
});

The same values can be set with environment variables:

export SW_AGENT_NAME=checkout-service
export SW_AGENT_COLLECTOR_BACKEND_SERVICES=127.0.0.1:11800

See Quick start for the full setup and a way to load the agent with Node.js --require.

Documentation

The documentation index includes:

• setup and all configuration values;
• tracing behavior and trace filtering;
• supported library plugins and AWS SDK v2 behavior;
• serverless and Webpack support;
• build, test, plugin development, and release guides.

Main features

• Automatic trace collection for Node.js HTTP, database, messaging, and framework libraries.
• SkyWalking trace context transfer between supported services.
• Optional wrappers for AWS Lambda and Azure Functions.

Contributing

Read Build and test before sending a change. Plugin authors should also read Plugin development.

Contact

• Report Node.js Agent problems in the Apache SkyWalking issue tracker with Nodejs in the issue title.
• Join the dev@skywalking.apache.org mailing list by sending a message to dev-subscribe@skywalking.apache.org.
• Join the skywalking channel on Apache Slack.

License

Apache License 2.0