Sentry Error Capture

Overview

Capture errors and enrich them with structured context so your team can diagnose production issues in seconds instead of hours. Covers captureException, captureMessage, scoped context (withScope / push_scope), breadcrumbs, custom fingerprinting, and beforeSend filtering using @sentry/node v8 and sentry-sdk v2 APIs.

Prerequisites

• Sentry SDK installed and initialized (@sentry/node v8+ or sentry-sdk v2+)
• A valid DSN configured via environment variable (SENTRY_DSN)
• Understanding of try/catch (JS) or try/except (Python) error handling
• A Sentry project created at sentry.io

Instructions

Step 1 -- Capture Exceptions with Full Stack Traces

Always pass real Error objects (or Python exception instances), never plain strings. Plain strings lose the stack trace, making debugging far harder.

TypeScript (@sentry/node)

import * as Sentry from '@sentry/node';

// CORRECT -- full stack trace preserved
try {
  await riskyOperation();
} catch (error) {
  Sentry.captureException(error);
}

// WRONG -- no stack trace, hard to debug
Sentry.captureException('something went wrong');

// Wrapping non-Error values into proper Error objects
Sentry.captureException(new Error(`API returned ${statusCode}: ${body}`));

// Capture with inline context (no scope needed for simple cases)
Sentry.captureException(error, {
  tags: { transaction: 'purchase' },
  extra: { orderId, amount },
});

Python (sentry-sdk)

import sentry_sdk

# CORRECT -- full traceback preserved
try:
    risky_operation()
except Exception as e:
    sentry_sdk.capture_exception(e)

# Capture current exception implicitly (inside except block)
try:
    risky_operation()
except Exception:
    sentry_sdk.capture_exception()  # captures sys.exc_info() automatically

Step 2 -- Capture Messages for Non-Exception Events

Use captureMessage for events that are not exceptions but still worth tracking: deprecation warnings, capacity thresholds, business logic anomalies.

TypeScript

// Severity levels: 'fatal' | 'error' | 'warning' | 'info' | 'debug' | 'log'
Sentry.captureMessage('Payment processed successfully', 'info');
Sentry.captureMessage('Deprecated API endpoint accessed', 'warning');
Sentry.captureMessage('Database connection pool exhausted', 'fatal');

Python

sentry_sdk.capture_message("Payment gateway timeout", level="warning")
sentry_sdk.capture_message("Daily report generated", level="info")
sentry_sdk.capture_message("Connection pool exhausted", level="fatal")

Step 3 -- Enrich Events with Scoped Context

Use withScope (TypeScript) or push_scope (Python) to attach context to a single event without polluting the global scope. Context is automatically cleaned up when the scope exits.

TypeScript -- withScope

Sentry.withScope((scope) => {
  // User identity for issue assignment and impact analysis
  scope.setUser({
    id: user.id,
    email: user.email,
    subscription: user.plan,
  });

  // Tags: indexed, searchable in Sentry UI filters
  scope.setTag('payment_provider', 'stripe');
  scope.setTag('feature', 'checkout');

  // Structured context: visible in event detail sidebar
  scope.setContext('payment', {
    amount: 9999,
    currency: 'USD',
    customer_id: 'cus_abc123',
    idempotency_key: 'idem_xyz789',
  });

  // Extra data: arbitrary key-value pairs for debugging
  scope.setExtra('cart', cartItems);

  // Override severity level
  scope.setLevel('fatal');

  // Custom fingerprint to control issue grouping
  scope.setFingerprint(['checkout-failure', paymentProvider]);

  Sentry.captureException(error);
});
// Scope is automatically cleaned up -- global scope unchanged

Python -- push_scope

with sentry_sdk.push_scope() as scope:
    scope.user = {"id": user_id, "email": user_email}
    scope.set_tag("feature", "checkout")
    scope.set_extra("cart", cart_items)
    scope.level = "fatal"
    scope.fingerprint = ["checkout-failure", str(error_code)]
    sentry_sdk.capture_exception(error)
# Scope is automatically cleaned up

Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs create a trail of events leading up to an error. Sentry auto-captures some (console logs, HTTP requests, DOM events), but manual breadcrumbs add domain-specific context.

TypeScript

Sentry.addBreadcrumb({
  category: 'auth',
  message: `User ${userId} logged in via ${provider}`,
  level: 'info',
  data: { provider, method: 'oauth2' },
});

Sentry.addBreadcrumb({
  category: 'transaction',
  message: 'Payment initiated',
  level: 'info',
  data: { amount: 49.99, items: 3 },
});
// The next captured error includes all breadcrumbs above

Python

sentry_sdk.add_breadcrumb(
    category="auth",
    message=f"User {user_id} logged in via {provider}",
    level="info",
    data={"provider": provider, "method": "oauth2"},
)

sentry_sdk.add_breadcrumb(
    category="transaction",
    message="Payment initiated",
    level="info",
    data={"amount": 49.99, "items": 3},
)

Custom Fingerprinting

Override Sentry's default grouping to control how errors are merged into issues. Without custom fingerprints, Sentry groups by stack trace, which can split logically identical errors or merge unrelated ones.

// Group all timeout errors for /api/search into one issue
Sentry.withScope((scope) => {
  scope.setFingerprint(['api-timeout', 'search-endpoint']);
  Sentry.captureException(new Error('Search API timeout'));
});

// Group by error type + HTTP status + endpoint
Sentry.withScope((scope) => {
  scope.setFingerprint(['http-error', String(response.status), endpoint]);
  Sentry.captureException(error);
});

// Use {{ default }} to extend rather than replace default grouping
Sentry.withScope((scope) => {
  scope.setFingerprint(['{{ default }}', tenantId]);
  Sentry.captureException(error);
});

Global Filtering with beforeSend

Configure beforeSend during initialization to filter noise, scrub sensitive data, or enrich all events globally.

Sentry.init({
  dsn: process.env.SENTRY_DSN,
  beforeSend(event, hint) {
    const error = hint?.originalException;

    // Drop specific error types
    if (error instanceof AbortError) return null;
    if (error?.message?.match(/ResizeObserver loop/)) return null;

    // Scrub sensitive headers
    if (event.request?.headers) {
      delete event.request.headers['Authorization'];
      delete event.request.headers['Cookie'];
    }

    // Enrich database errors with subsystem tag
    if (error instanceof DatabaseError) {
      event.tags = { ...event.tags, subsystem: 'database' };
      event.level = 'fatal';
    }

    return event; // Must return event or null
  },

  // Pattern-based noise filtering
  ignoreErrors: [
    'ResizeObserver loop',
    'Non-Error promise rejection',
    /Loading chunk \d+ failed/,
    'Network request failed',
  ],
});

Output

• Errors with full stack traces and context in the Sentry Issues dashboard
• Scoped tags and structured context for filtering and search
• Breadcrumb trails showing the user journey before errors
• Custom fingerprints grouping related errors into single issues
• Clean event stream via beforeSend filtering and ignoreErrors

Error Handling

Examples

TypeScript -- Express Route with Context

import express from 'express';
import * as Sentry from '@sentry/node';

const app = express();
Sentry.setupExpressErrorHandler(app);

app.get('/api/users/:id', async (req, res) => {
  Sentry.setUser({ id: req.params.id });
  try {
    const user = await getUser(req.params.id);
    res.json(user);
  } catch (error) {
    Sentry.withScope((scope) => {
      scope.setContext('request', {
        params: req.params,
        query: req.query,
        method: req.method,
      });
      Sentry.captureException(error);
    });
    res.status(500).json({ error: 'Internal server error' });
  }
});

TypeScript -- Batch Processing with Promise.allSettled

async function processQueue(items: QueueItem[]) {
  const results = await Promise.allSettled(
    items.map(item => processItem(item))
  );
  results.forEach((result, index) => {
    if (result.status === 'rejected') {
      Sentry.withScope((scope) => {
        scope.setTag('queue_item_index', String(index));
        scope.setContext('item', items[index]);
        Sentry.captureException(result.reason);
      });
    }
  });
}

Python -- Background Job Error

import sentry_sdk

def process_report(report_id: str, user_id: str):
    sentry_sdk.add_breadcrumb(
        category="jobs",
        message=f"Report generation started: {report_id}",
        level="info",
    )
    try:
        data = fetch_report_data(report_id)
        return generate_pdf(data)
    except Exception as error:
        with sentry_sdk.push_scope() as scope:
            scope.user = {"id": user_id}
            scope.set_tag("job_type", "report_generation")
            scope.set_context("report", {
                "report_id": report_id,
                "stage": "pdf_generation",
            })
            scope.fingerprint = ["report-failure", report_id]
            sentry_sdk.capture_exception(error)
        raise

Resources

• Capturing Errors -- captureException and captureMessage reference
• Scopes and Context -- withScope, setUser, setTag, setContext
• Breadcrumbs -- manual and auto-captured breadcrumbs
• Filtering Events -- beforeSend, ignoreErrors, sampling
• Issue Grouping -- fingerprinting and merge/unmerge
• Python SDK Usage -- Python-specific capture patterns

Next Steps

• Performance tracing: Add Sentry.startSpan() to measure operation timing (see sentry-performance-tracing)
• Release management: Tag errors with release versions for regression detection (see sentry-release-management)
• Cost tuning: Configure sampleRate and tracesSampleRate to control event volume (see sentry-cost-tuning)