Basic Options

SDKs are configurable using a variety of options. The options are largely standardized among SDKs, but there are some differences to better accommodate platform peculiarities. Options are set when the SDK is first initialized.

Options are passed into sentry_init as a pointer to an options object created via sentry_options_new(). There are functions that allow to set all options individually.

#include <sentry.h>

int main(void) {
  sentry_options_t *options = sentry_options_new();
  sentry_options_set_dsn(options, "https://examplePublicKey@o0.ingest.sentry.io/0");
  sentry_options_set_release(options, "my-project-name@2.3.12");
  sentry_options_set_debug(options, 1);
  sentry_init(options);

  /* ... */
}

Common Options

The list of common options across SDKs. These work more or less the same in all SDKs, but some subtle differences will exist to better support the platform. Options that can be read from an environment variable (SENTRY_DSN, SENTRY_ENVIRONMENT, SENTRY_RELEASE) are read automatically.

dsn

The DSN tells the SDK where to send the events. If this value is not provided, the SDK will try to read it from the SENTRY_DSN environment variable. If that variable also does not exist, the SDK will just not send any events.

In runtimes without a process environment (such as the browser) that fallback does not apply.

Learn more about DSN utilization.

database_path

Allows you to specify a path to the local event- and crash-database of the Native SDK. This path will default to .sentry-native relative to the current working directory (CWD). While this is a convenient setting for development, we strongly urge you to provide an explicit database path for our production deployments. In many deployment scenarios, the path relative to the CWD will not be writable. For this reason, you should store the database in your application's user-specific data/cache directory (e.g., under %AppData%\Local on Windows, ~/Library/Application Support on macOS, or XDG_CACHE_HOME on Linux).

debug

Turns debug mode on or off. If debug is enabled SDK will attempt to print out useful debugging information if something goes wrong with sending the event. The default is always false. It's generally not recommended to turn it on in production, though turning debug mode on will not cause any safety concerns.

release

Sets the release. Some SDKs will try to automatically configure a release out of the box but it's a better idea to manually set it to guarantee that the release is in sync with your deploy integrations or source map uploads. Release names are strings, but some formats are detected by Sentry and might be rendered differently. Learn more about how to send release data so Sentry can tell you about regressions between releases and identify the potential source in the releases documentation or the sandbox.

By default the SDK will try to read this value from the SENTRY_RELEASE environment variable (in the browser SDK, this will be read off of the window.SENTRY_RELEASE.id if available).

environment

Sets the environment. This string is freeform and set by default. A release can be associated with more than one environment to separate them in the UI (think staging vs prod or similar).

By default the SDK will try to read this value from the SENTRY_ENVIRONMENT environment variable. Otherwise, the default environment is production.

sample_rate

Configures the sample rate for error events, in the range of 0.0 to 1.0. The default is 1.0 which means that 100% of error events are sent. If set to 0.1 only 10% of error events will be sent. Events are picked randomly.

max_breadcrumbs

This variable controls the total amount of breadcrumbs that should be captured. This defaults to 100, but you can set this to any number. However, you should be aware that Sentry has a maximum payload size and any events exceeding that payload size will be dropped.

attach_stacktrace

When enabled, stack traces are automatically attached to all messages logged. Stack traces are always attached to exceptions; however, when this option is set, stack traces are also sent with messages. This option, for instance, means that stack traces appear next to all log messages.

This option is turned off by default.

Grouping in Sentry is different for events with stack traces and without. As a result, you will get new groups as you enable or disable this flag for certain events.

Hooks

These options can be used to hook the SDK in various ways to customize the reporting of events.

before_send

This function is called with an SDK-specific message or error event object, and can return a modified event object, or null to skip reporting the event. This can be used, for instance, for manual PII stripping before sending.

By the time before_send is executed, all scope data has already been applied to the event. Further modification of the scope won't have any effect.

on_crash

This function is called with a backend-specific event object, and can return a modified event object or nothing to skip reporting the event. In contrast to before_send, it is only called when a crash occurred. You can find detailed information concerning its usage in Filtering.

Tracing Options

traces_sample_rate

A number between 0.0 and 1.0, controlling the percentage chance a given transaction will be sent to Sentry. (0.0 represents 0% while 1.0 represents 100%.) Applies equally to all transactions created in the app. Either this or traces_sampler must be defined to enable tracing.