Behavioral Analysis: The Challenge of the Tab

Anthony Yerhot — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 12:02:52 +0000

Currently working on a Saas that reads a user’s behavior on a site. The goal is keeping it lightweight and privacy centered.

All interactions are recorded in the browser. When the browser hides the page, a compact summary is calculated and sent to a cloudflare worker for insertion into a D1 DB.

The exit events are strictly bound using this function.

// Bind exit triggers strictly once
if (this.config.endpoint && !this._hasSetupTriggers) {
    const handleExit = (event) => {
        if (this._hasSent) return; 
        if (document.visibilityState === 'hidden' || event.type === 'pagehide' || event.type === 'beforeunload') {
            this._hasSent = true;
            this.forceSend();
        }
    };
    document.addEventListener('visibilitychange', handleExit);
    window.addEventListener('pagehide', handleExit);
    window.addEventListener('beforeunload', handleExit);
    this._hasSetupTriggers = true;
}

2 attempts are made to send.

1st

const success = navigator.sendBeacon(this.config.endpoint, payload);

And 2nd fallback

if (!success) {
    fetch(this.config.endpoint, { method: 'POST', body: payload, keepalive: true }).catch(e => console.error(e));
}

But what about if the user returns to the tab?

The function keeps recording when they return. But it won't fire again because of the way I set up handleExit.

const handleExit = (event) => {
    if (this._hasSent) return; // <-- THE LOCK
    if (document.visibilityState === 'hidden' || event.type === 'pagehide' || event.type === 'beforeunload') {
        this._hasSent = true;      // <-- LOCKING IT
        this.forceSend();
    }
};

Because it locks hasSent to true I can't fire another beacon for the session.

I need to turn this._hasSent = false when they return so I can fire again.

const handleVisibilityChange = (event) => {
    // 1. User hides the tab, navigates away, or closes the browser
    if (document.visibilityState === 'hidden' || event.type === 'pagehide' || event.type === 'beforeunload') {
        if (this._hasSent) return; // Prevent duplicate immediate fires
        this._hasSent = true;      // Lock the beacon
        this.forceSend();          // Fire navigator.sendBeacon
    } 
    // 2. User returns to the tab
    else if (document.visibilityState === 'visible') {
        this._hasSent = false;     // Unlock the beacon so it can fire again later
    }
};

document.addEventListener('visibilitychange', handleVisibilityChange);
window.addEventListener('pagehide', handleVisibilityChange);
window.addEventListener('beforeunload', handleVisibilityChange);

But this creates another problem, multiple writes for the same session ID (primary key).

I use write or replace for duplicate session IDs. This takes the latest data and scrubs the old.

// --- 7. DATA INGESTION (shape_db) ---
// Force the Project ID to be the securely retrieved domain_whitelist.
const permanentProjectId = authData.domain_whitelist || 'unknown_domain';

// UPDATED: INSERT OR REPLACE handles tab-switching updates for the same sessionId
await env.DB.prepare(`
    INSERT OR REPLACE INTO sessions (
        id, project_id, schema_version, url, timestamp, 
        session_duration_ms, event_count, engine_version, tune_version, device, metrics, shapes
    ) VALUES (?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?)
`).bind(
    data.sessionId, 
    permanentProjectId, 
    data.payloadSchema,                 
    data.url || '',
    data.timestamp || new Date().toISOString(),
    data.sessionDurationMs,
    data.eventCount || 0,
    data.engineVersion || '',
    data.tuneVersion || '',
    data.device || 'unknown',
    JSON.stringify(data.metrics, null, 2), 
    JSON.stringify(data.shapes, null, 2)
).run();

Full project here:

Repository: View the code on GitHub
Live Site: Check out the SaaS

Hopefully my experience with users and their desire to open tabs and jump around like jack rabbits help.

Cheers

DEV Community: Anthony Yerhot

Behavioral Analysis: The Challenge of the Tab