Capturing Errors

While Sentry Sails automatically captures unhandled errors, you can also manually capture errors and messages.

Accessing Sentry

The Sentry SDK is available via sails.sentry:

// Available globally after hook initialization
sails.sentry

Capturing Exceptions

Use captureException to manually report errors:

// In a controller action
module.exports = {
  fn: async function () {
    try {
      await riskyOperation()
    } catch (error) {
      sails.sentry.captureException(error)
      throw error // Re-throw to trigger your error handling
    }
  }
}

With Additional Context

try {
  await processPayment(orderId)
} catch (error) {
  sails.sentry.captureException(error, {
    tags: {
      section: 'payments'
    },
    extra: {
      orderId: orderId
    }
  })
  throw error
}

Capturing Messages

Use captureMessage for non-error events you want to track:

// Log an informational message
sails.sentry.captureMessage('User completed onboarding')

// With severity level
sails.sentry.captureMessage('Payment retry attempted', 'warning')

Severity Levels

• fatal - Application crash
• error - Error condition
• warning - Warning condition
• info - Informational message
• debug - Debug information

Scoped Error Capture

Use withScope to add context to a specific error:

sails.sentry.withScope((scope) => {
  scope.setTag('transaction', 'checkout')
  scope.setLevel('error')
  scope.setExtra('cart', cartItems)

  sails.sentry.captureException(new Error('Checkout failed'))
})

Helper Pattern

Create a helper for consistent error capture:

api/helpers/capture-error.js

module.exports = {
  friendlyName: 'Capture error',

  inputs: {
    error: {
      type: 'ref',
      required: true
    },
    context: {
      type: 'ref',
      defaultsTo: {}
    }
  },

  fn: async function ({ error, context }) {
    sails.sentry.withScope((scope) => {
      if (context.tags) {
        Object.entries(context.tags).forEach(([key, value]) => {
          scope.setTag(key, value)
        })
      }
      if (context.extra) {
        scope.setExtras(context.extra)
      }
      if (context.user) {
        scope.setUser(context.user)
      }
      sails.sentry.captureException(error)
    })
  }
}

Usage:

await sails.helpers.captureError(error, {
  tags: { feature: 'checkout' },
  extra: { orderId: order.id },
  user: { id: req.session.userId }
})