Rollbar Cheat Sheet

Overview

Rollbar is a cloud-based error monitoring and crash reporting platform that provides real-time visibility into application errors across your entire stack. It automatically groups similar errors, tracks error trends across deploys, and integrates with development workflows through Jira, GitHub, Slack, and PagerDuty to accelerate debugging and resolution.

Rollbar supports SDKs for JavaScript, Python, Ruby, PHP, Java, .NET, Go, Node.js, iOS, Android, and more. Key features include AI-assisted grouping, automated issue creation, deploy tracking, people tracking, telemetry breadcrumbs, and RQL (Rollbar Query Language) for searching through error data.

Installation

# JavaScript (Browser)
npm install rollbar

# Node.js
npm install rollbar

# Python
pip install rollbar

# Ruby
gem install rollbar

# PHP
composer require rollbar/rollbar

# Go
go get github.com/rollbar/rollbar-go

# .NET
dotnet add package Rollbar

Core Configuration

Node.js

const Rollbar = require("rollbar");

const rollbar = new Rollbar({
  accessToken: "POST_SERVER_ITEM_ACCESS_TOKEN",
  environment: process.env.NODE_ENV || "development",
  codeVersion: "1.2.0",
  captureUncaught: true,
  captureUnhandledRejections: true,
  payload: {
    server: {
      root: process.cwd(),
      host: "web-01",
    },
  },
});

// Express middleware
app.use(rollbar.errorHandler());

JavaScript (Browser)

const rollbarConfig = {
  accessToken: "POST_CLIENT_ITEM_ACCESS_TOKEN",
  environment: "production",
  captureUncaught: true,
  captureUnhandledRejections: true,
  payload: {
    client: {
      javascript: {
        source_map_enabled: true,
        code_version: "1.2.0",
        guess_uncaught_frames: true,
      },
    },
  },
};

const rollbar = new Rollbar(rollbarConfig);

Python / Django

import rollbar

rollbar.init(
    access_token="POST_SERVER_ITEM_ACCESS_TOKEN",
    environment="production",
    code_version="1.2.0",
    root=os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(__file__)),
)

# Django settings.py
MIDDLEWARE = [
    "rollbar.contrib.django.middleware.RollbarNotifierMiddleware",
    # ... other middleware
]

ROLLBAR = {
    "access_token": "POST_SERVER_ITEM_ACCESS_TOKEN",
    "environment": "production",
    "code_version": "1.2.0",
    "root": BASE_DIR,
}

Manual Error Reporting

// Log levels: critical, error, warning, info, debug
rollbar.error("Something went wrong");
rollbar.critical("Database connection lost");
rollbar.warning("Deprecated API endpoint called");
rollbar.info("User signed up", { userId: "123" });
rollbar.debug("Cache miss for key", { key: "user:123" });

// Report caught exceptions
try {
  processPayment(order);
} catch (err) {
  rollbar.error(err, { orderId: order.id, amount: order.total });
}

// Report with custom data
rollbar.error("API timeout", {
  endpoint: "/api/users",
  timeout: 30000,
  retryCount: 3,
});

# Python error reporting
import rollbar

rollbar.report_message("User signup failed", level="error",
    extra_data={"user_id": "123", "step": "email_verification"})

try:
    process_order(order_id)
except Exception:
    rollbar.report_exc_info(
        extra_data={"order_id": order_id, "amount": 99.99}
    )

Person Tracking

// Set user context
rollbar.configure({
  payload: {
    person: {
      id: "user-123",
      username: "jdoe",
      email: "jdoe@example.com",
    },
  },
});

Telemetry / Breadcrumbs

// Automatic telemetry captures console, network, DOM events
const rollbar = new Rollbar({
  accessToken: "TOKEN",
  autoInstrument: {
    network: true,
    log: true,
    dom: true,
    navigation: true,
    connectivity: true,
  },
  maxTelemetryEvents: 50,
});

Deploy Tracking

# Notify Rollbar of a deploy via API
curl -X POST https://api.rollbar.com/api/1/deploy \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "access_token": "POST_SERVER_ITEM_ACCESS_TOKEN",
    "environment": "production",
    "revision": "'$(git rev-parse HEAD)'",
    "local_username": "'$(whoami)'",
    "rollbar_username": "jdoe",
    "comment": "Deployed v1.2.0"
  }'

Source Maps

# Upload source maps via API
curl -X POST https://api.rollbar.com/api/1/sourcemap \
  -F access_token=POST_SERVER_ITEM_ACCESS_TOKEN \
  -F version=1.2.0 \
  -F minified_url=https://example.com/static/app.min.js \
  -F source_map=@dist/app.min.js.map

RQL (Rollbar Query Language)

-- Find all critical errors in the last 24 hours
SELECT * FROM item_occurrence
WHERE item.level = 'critical'
AND timestamp > unix_timestamp() - 86400

-- Count errors by environment
SELECT item.environment, count(*)
FROM item_occurrence
GROUP BY item.environment

-- Find errors affecting a specific user
SELECT * FROM item_occurrence
WHERE body.person.id = 'user-123'

-- Top errors by occurrence count
SELECT item.title, count(*) AS cnt
FROM item_occurrence
GROUP BY item.title
ORDER BY cnt DESC
LIMIT 20

Advanced Usage

Custom Fingerprinting

rollbar.configure({
  payload: {
    fingerprint: "custom-group-key",
  },
});

// Per-occurrence fingerprint
rollbar.error("Payment failed", {
  fingerprint: "payment-failure-stripe",
});

Transform Payload

const rollbar = new Rollbar({
  accessToken: "TOKEN",
  transform: function (payload) {
    // Scrub sensitive data
    if (payload.body?.request?.headers) {
      delete payload.body.request.headers["Authorization"];
    }
    // Add custom data
    payload.data.custom = {
      buildId: process.env.BUILD_ID,
    };
  },
});

Check/Ignore Functions

const rollbar = new Rollbar({
  accessToken: "TOKEN",
  checkIgnore: function (isUncaught, args, payload) {
    // Ignore errors from bots
    if (payload?.data?.client?.javascript?.browser?.includes("bot")) {
      return true;
    }
    return false;
  },
});

Configuration Options

Option	Description
accessToken	Project access token (required)
environment	Current environment name
codeVersion	Git SHA or version string
captureUncaught	Auto-capture uncaught exceptions
captureUnhandledRejections	Auto-capture promise rejections
hostSafeList	Domains to monitor (browser)
hostBlockList	Domains to ignore (browser)
scrubFields	Fields to redact from payloads
logLevel	Minimum level to report
verbose	Enable verbose SDK logging

Troubleshooting

Issue	Solution
Events not appearing	Verify access token has write permissions; check environment filter
Source maps not resolving	Ensure code_version matches between config and upload
Duplicate items	Review custom fingerprinting; check grouping settings
Rate limit exceeded	Filter noisy errors with checkIgnore; adjust sampling
Missing stack traces	Enable source maps; check guess_uncaught_frames for browser
Person data not showing	Verify person object has id field set
Deploy not linking to items	Ensure revision matches code_version in SDK config
Payload too large	Reduce telemetry events with maxTelemetryEvents; scrub large objects