Sentry + Laravel: A Powerful Duo for Error Tracking and Debugging

Error tracking is an essential part of modern software development, enabling developers to identify and resolve issues that may impact the performance and reliability of their applications. Laravel, a widely used PHP framework, provides a robust platform for building web applications, but like any other software, it can encounter errors during development and production.

When an application is in production, errors can significantly impact user experience, resulting in loss of revenue, decreased customer satisfaction, and reputational damage. To effectively track and resolve errors in Laravel applications, developers need a reliable and comprehensive error-tracking solution that can provide real-time notifications and insights into the root causes of errors. Sentry, a powerful error-tracking tool, offers an array of features designed to simplify error management, enabling developers to quickly identify, diagnose, and resolve errors, regardless of whether the application is in development or production.

In this article, we will delve into the process of configuring Sentry for error tracking in Laravel, empowering developers to proactively monitor and resolve errors, ensure a seamless user experience, and deliver reliable and high-performing software.

Prerequisites

• Basic knowledge of PHP and the Laravel framework.
• A Sentry account. Open a free account here.
• Composer: Composer is the dependency manager for the PHP programming language that provides a standard format for managing dependencies of PHP software and required libraries. We’ll use it to install some packages in the project directory. Download it here. ## Getting Started

First, we create a new Laravel project by running the command below in the terminal.

    laravel new sentry-laravel

Sentry Setup

Here’s how to set up Sentry

1. Access the Sentry dashboard and navigate to the Projects tab.
   

2. Click on "Create Project" to start the project creation process.

3. Choose Laravel as the platform for your project.

4. Optionally, rename the project to your desired name.

5. Keep the other settings as they are and click on "Create Project" to create your project.

We continue the setup by installing the sentry-laravel package. We can do that by running the command below.

    composer require sentry/sentry-laravel

This command installs the sentry-laravel Software Development Kit(SDK). Once installed and configured, the package sends error and exception events that occur within your Laravel application to Sentry.

Next, we go to the App/Exceptions/Handler.php directory in our Laravel projects and add the following code block to the register function.

    use Sentry\Laravel\Integration;

    public function register()
    {
        $this->reportable(function (Throwable $e) {
            if (app()->bound('sentry')) {
                app('sentry')->captureException($e);
            }
        });
    }

In the code block above, we are defining a custom exception-handling function in our Laravel application, which will capture any unhandled exceptions and send them to Sentry using the app('sentry')->captureException($e) method. The if (app()->bound('sentry')) check ensures that the Sentry service is available and registered in the application before trying to capture the exception.

We need to create a Sentry configuration file in Laravel to customize our error-tracking settings. This can be done by running the command below.

    php artisan sentry:publish --dsn=https://[e-mail]/4505018583285760

This command creates a file called **sentry.php** in the **config** directory of our Laravel project. It also adds the DSN to our **.env** file which allows Laravel to send error data to Sentry for real-time tracking.

Note: The DSN (Data Source Name) used in this tutorial is for illustrative purposes only and will be unique to your Sentry project. Please use the DSN specific to your Sentry project when configuring error tracking in your Laravel application.

Finally, let's send a test exception to Sentry. We can do that by running the command below

    php artisan sentry:test

If everything is set up correctly, we should be able to see the response below in the Issues tab.

Testing Sentry with Code

To confirm that Sentry is capturing errors in our application, we will create a route that throws an exception.

Open the **routes/web.php** ****and add the following code snippet.

    Route::get('/test-sentry', function () {
        throw new Exception('Testing Sentry...');
    });

The response below should be displayed.

Conclusion

With Sentry's robust features and intuitive dashboard, developers can proactively monitor their Laravel applications, gain insights into error trends, and ensure smooth operation. By incorporating Sentry into their error management workflow, developers can streamline their debugging process, save time, and deliver high-quality software.

Resources

Here are some resources for further reading.

• Laravel 8 Sentry Tutorial