README

RudderStack JavaScript SDK

The RudderStack JavaScript SDK leverages the rudder-analytics.js library to track and send user events from your website to RudderStack. You can then further transform and route this event data to the destination platform of your choice.

For detailed documentation on the RudderStack JavaScript SDK, click here.

IMPORTANT: We have deprecated the Autotrack feature for the RudderStack JavaScript SDK. If you still wish to use it for your project, refer to this repository.

Installing the JavaScript SDK

To integrate the JavaScript SDK with your website, you can use this NPM module to package RudderStack directly into your project.

To install, run:

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 and window.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	v10 or later
Edge	v15 or later
Mozilla Firefox	v40 or later
Chrome	v37 or later
Opera	v23 or later
Yandex	v14.12 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: "name@domain.com"
  }, {
    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 an anonymousId.

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.

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.

Usage no npm install needed!