hull-client

Overview

In this package:

Hull Client

A low level Hull Platform API client. Refer to it's documentation for more details

const hullClient = new Hull.Client({ configuration });

In the hull-node package (which embeds this one):

Hull Middleware

A bridge between Hull Client and a NodeJS HTTP application (e.g. express) which initializes context for every HTTP request:

app.use(Hull.Middleware({ configuration }));

Hull Connector

const connector = new Hull.Connector({ configuration });

A complete toolkit which is created next to ExpressJS server instance. Includes Hull Middleware and a set of official patterns to build highly scalable and efficient Connectors.

---

HullClient

This library makes it easy to interact with the Hull API, track Events and set attributes on Users and Accounts.

Creating a new Hull client is pretty straightforward:

npm install -s hull-client

const HullClient = require("hull-client");

const hullClient = new HullClient({
  id: "5aafb6ccc32b617846000001",
  secret: "cbo128745o12786345goc12475",
  organization: "xxx.hullapp.io"
});

Find all required and optional constructor options in API REFERENCE.

Calling the API

Once you have instantiated a HullClient, you can use one of the get, post, putor del methods to perform actions of Hull's HTTP REST API.

// `client.api.get` works too.
const params = {};
hullClient.get(path, params)
  .then(function(response) {
    console.log(response);
  })
  .catch(function(err) {
    console.log(err);
  });

The first parameter is the path, the second is the set of parameters you want to send with the request. They all return Promises so you can use the .then() syntax.

Find detailed description of those api methods in API REFERENCE.

Scoping HullClient to User or Account identity

A common use case is to interact with the API identified as a User or Account. To get a scoped HullClient use asUser or asAccount methods just like below:

// if you have a user id from your database, use the `external_id` field
const user = hullClient.asUser({ external_id: "dkjf565wd654e" });

// if you have a Hull Internal User Id:
const user = hullClient.asUser({ id: "5718b59b7a85ebf20e000169" });
// or just as a string:
const user = hullClient.asUser("5718b59b7a85ebf20e000169");

// Constant `user` is an instance of HullClient, scoped to a specific user
// perform an API call with the user access token
user.get("/me").then((me) => {
  console.log(me);
});

// store attributes on this user identity
user.traits({ foo: "bar "})


// get the access token value
user.token();

// client for an account identified by its domain name
const account = hullClient.asAccount({ domain: 'hull.io' });
account.traits({ name: "Hull inc" });

To identify a User, you can use an internal Hull id, an ID from your own system of records or database that we call external_id, an email address or anonymous_id. See more examples of picking and using different User claims below.

To identify an account, you can use a Hull id, an external_id or a domain.

Using asUser and asAccount methods doesn't make an API call, it just returns scoped instance of HullClient which comes with additional methods (see API REFERENCE).

The second parameter lets you define additional options (JWT claims) passed to the user resolution script which customize how platform identity resolution mechanism will work (see API REFERENCE).

Examples

Return a HullClient scoped to the user identified by its Hull ID. Not lazily created. Needs an existing User.

hullClient.asUser(userId, { create: false });

Return a HullClient scoped to the user identified by its External ID and email. Lazily created if not present before.

hullClient.asUser({ external_id: "dkjf565wd654e" });

hullClient.asUser({ email: "[e-mail]" });

Return a HullClient scoped to the user identified by only by an anonymousId. Lets you start tracking and storing properties from a user before you have a UserID ready for him. Lazily created if Guest Users are enabled When you have a UserId, just pass both to link them.

hullClient.asUser({ anonymous_id: "44564-EJVWE-1CE56SE-SDVE879VW8D4" });

Return a hull HullClient authenticated as the user but with admin privileges

hullClient.asUser({ email: "[e-mail]" }, { scopes: ["admin"] });

Find detailed description of those claims scoping methods in API REFERENCE.

Methods for User or Account scoped instance

const externalId = "dkjf565wd654e";
const anonymousId = "44564-EJVWE-1CE56SE-SDVE879VW8D4";

const user = client.asUser({ external_id: externalId, anonymous_id: anonymousId });

When you do this, you get a new client that has a different behaviour. It's now behaving as a User would. It means it does API calls as a user and has new methods to track and store properties

Tracking User Events

Stores a new event.

const user = hullClient.asUser({ email: "[e-mail]" });
user.track("new support ticket", {
  messages: 3,
  priority: "high"
}, {
  source: "zendesk",
  type: 'ticket',
  event_id: 'uuid1234' // Pass a unique ID to ensure event de-duplication
  ip: null, // don't store ip - it's a server call
  referer: null, // don't store referer - it's a server call
  created_at: '2013-02-08 09:30:26.123+07:00' // ISO 8601. moment.js does it very well
});

Find detailed information about track method in API REFERENCE.

Updating User or Account Attributes

Stores Attributes on the user:

user.traits({
  opened_tickets: 12
}, { source: "zendesk" });
// 'source' is optional. Will store the traits grouped under the source name.

// Alternatively, you can send properties for multiple groups with the flat syntax:
user.traits({ "zendesk/opened_tickets": 12, "clearbit/name": "foo" });

Find detailed information about traits method in API REFERENCE.

Utils

HullClient comes with a set of utilities to simplify working with Hull REST API:

• util.settings.update - allows to update only part of connector settings, see details
• util.properties.get - parse list of attributes stored on organization level, see details
• util.traits.group - allows to transform a flat list of attributes to nested object, see details

Logging

HullClient comes with a built-in logger utility exposed as hullClient.logger which emits a standardised output that captures the context of the HullClient instance (initial constructor configuration, additional User or Account claims etc.)

The Logger comes in two flavors, HullClient.logger.xxx and hullClient.logger.xxx - The first one is a generic logger, the second is contextual to the current instance of HullClient and captures the ship id organization and current User or Account identifiers.

The Logger is implemented with Winston. By default it comes with console stdout/stderr transport which will show logs from info level.

HullClient.logger.info("message", { object }); // Class logging method,
hullClient.logger.info("message", { object }); // Instance logging method, adds Ship ID and Organization to Context. Use if available.

// Debug works the same way but by default they won't be logged, adjust the log level in following way:
Hull.logger.transports.console.level = "debug";

HullClient.logger.debug("message", { object }); // Class logging method,
hullClient.logger.debug("message", { object });

// You can add more logging destinations like this:
const winstonSlacker = require("winston-slacker");
HullClient.logger.add(winstonSlacker,  { ... });

Logs scoped to specific User or Account

You can also have a user or account scoped logger. Claims used in asUser and asAccount methods will be added to the log context.

const user = hullClient.asUser({ email: "[e-mail]" });
user.logger.info("hello");

// it will produce following log line:
{"context":{"organization":"xxx.hullapp.io","id":"5aafb6ccc32b617846000001","user_email":"[e-mail]"},"level":"info","message":"hello"}

Setting a requestId in the logs context

You can decorate all your logs context with a request_id which allows you to group all logs related to a particular request or transaction.

This identifier can be passed a requestId param at the initialization of the Client.

const client = new Hull({
  organization: "xxx.hullapp.io",
  id: "5aafb6ccc32b617846000001",
  secret: "change-me-please",
  requestId: "123"
});

client.logger.info("hello");

will log the following line

{"context":{"organization":"193a8881.hullapp.io","id":"59e99ec13cd60e5c9d000037","request_id":"123"},"level":"info","message":"hello"}

Changelog

2.0.0-beta.1

• BREAKING HullClient is a set of ES6 classes now, not a Function anymore - this means you cannot do const hullClient = HullClient() anymore, you always need new keyword
• BREAKING as method is not available anymore, use asUser
• BREAKING utils.groupTraits method is not available anymore, use utils.traits.group
• BREAKING traits method second parameter accepting source and sync option is not available anymore. Sync calls are not available at all, and if you need to apply source to your traits you need to do it before passing payload to traits method
• BREAKING hullClient.api.get methods are not available anymore, use hullClient.get or hullClient.api(path, "get"), the same applies for all HTTP verbs
• the client now comes with full set of Flow types in src/types.js file

  import type { HullUserClaims } from "hull-client";
  
  const userClaims: HullUserClaims = {
    wrong_claim: "bar"
  };
  // this will throw flow check error since `wrong_claim` is not correct
  

• underlying HTTP library restler was replaced with superagent