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Breadcrumbs

Sentry uses breadcrumbs to create a trail of events that happened prior to an issue. These events are very similar to traditional logs, but can record more rich structured data.

This page provides an overview of manual breadcrumb recording and customization. Learn more about the information that displays on the Issue Details page and how you can filter breadcrumbs to quickly resolve issues in Using Breadcrumbs.

Manual Breadcrumbs

You can manually add breadcrumbs whenever something interesting happens. For example, you might manually record a breadcrumb if the user authenticates or another state change happens.

Copied
import io.sentry.Breadcrumb;
import io.sentry.Sentry;
import io.sentry.SentryLevel;

Sentry.configureScope(scope -> {
    Breadcrumb breadcrumb = new Breadcrumb();
    breadcrumb.setCategory("auth");
    breadcrumb.setMessage("Authenticated user " + user.getEmail());
    breadcrumb.setLevel(SentryLevel.INFO);
    scope.addBreadcrumb(breadcrumb);
});

Automatic Breadcrumbs

SDKs and their associated integrations will automatically record many types of breadcrumbs. For instance, the browser JavaScript SDK will automatically record all location changes.

Customize Breadcrumbs

SDKs allow you to customize breadcrumbs through the before_breadcrumb hook. This hook is passed an already assembled breadcrumb and, in some SDKs, an optional hint. The function can modify the breadcrumb or decide to discard it entirely by returning null:

The Android SDK automatically collects and converts the following events into breadcrumbs:

  • Android Activity Lifecycle Events
  • Application Lifecycle Events (Lifecycle of the application process)
  • System Events (Low battery, Low storage space, Airplane mode started, Shutdown, Changes of the configuration, and so forth)
  • App. Component callbacks
Copied
import io.sentry.android.core.SentryAndroid;

SentryAndroid.init(options -> {
    options.setBeforeBreadcrumb((breadcrumb, hint) -> {
        if ("a.spammy.Logger".equals(breadcrumb.getCategory())) {
            return null;
        } else {
            return breadcrumb;
        }
    });
});

If you want to disable the automatic collection of breadcrumbs, please add the following items into your manifest.

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<application>
    <!--    To disable the activity lifecycle breadcrumbs integration-->
    <meta-data android:name="io.sentry.breadcrumbs.activity-lifecycle" android:value="false" />

    <!--     To disable the app lifecycle breadcrumbs integration-->
    <meta-data android:name="io.sentry.breadcrumbs.app-lifecycle" android:value="false" />

    <!--    To disable the system events breadcrumbs integration-->
    <meta-data android:name="io.sentry.breadcrumbs.system-events" android:value="false" />

    <!--    To disable the app components breadcrumbs integration-->
    <meta-data android:name="io.sentry.breadcrumbs.app-components" android:value="false" />
</application>

For information about what can be done with the hint, see Filtering Events.

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