insight

What is insight?

The 'insight' npm package is used for tracking and reporting anonymous usage metrics for your Node.js applications. It helps developers understand how their tools are being used by collecting data such as command usage, version information, and other relevant metrics.

What are insight's main functionalities?

Tracking Usage

This feature allows you to track usage events in your application. The code sample demonstrates how to initialize the Insight instance, ask for user permission, and track an event.

const Insight = require('insight');
const pkg = require('./package.json');

const insight = new Insight({
  trackingCode: 'UA-000000-01',
  pkg
});

// Ask for permission the first time
if (insight.optOut === undefined) {
  insight.askPermission();
}

// Track an event
insight.track('event', 'category', 'action', 'label', 'value');

Opt-in/Opt-out Management

This feature allows you to manage user consent for tracking. The code sample shows how to check if the user has opted out of tracking.

const Insight = require('insight');
const pkg = require('./package.json');

const insight = new Insight({
  trackingCode: 'UA-000000-01',
  pkg
});

// Check if the user has opted out
if (insight.optOut) {
  console.log('User has opted out of tracking');
} else {
  console.log('User has opted in to tracking');
}

Custom Event Tracking

This feature allows you to track custom events specific to your application. The code sample demonstrates how to track a custom event with specific parameters.

const Insight = require('insight');
const pkg = require('./package.json');

const insight = new Insight({
  trackingCode: 'UA-000000-01',
  pkg
});

// Track a custom event
insight.track('customEvent', 'customCategory', 'customAction', 'customLabel', 'customValue');

Other packages similar to insight

analytics-node

The 'analytics-node' package is a client for Segment's analytics service. It allows you to track events and send them to various analytics services. Compared to 'insight', 'analytics-node' offers more integrations and is part of a larger analytics ecosystem.

universal-analytics

The 'universal-analytics' package is a Node.js module for Google's Universal Analytics. It allows you to send data to Google Analytics from your server-side applications. Unlike 'insight', which is more focused on anonymous usage tracking, 'universal-analytics' is specifically designed for Google Analytics.

mixpanel

The 'mixpanel' package is a client for Mixpanel's analytics service. It provides robust event tracking and user analytics capabilities. Compared to 'insight', 'mixpanel' offers more advanced features like user segmentation and funnel analysis.

README

Insight

Understand how your tool is being used by anonymously reporting usage metrics to Google Analytics

This module uses the newly released Universal Analytics API from Google Analytics

Analytics dashboard example

Displaying metrics from Yeoman which makes use of Insight.

Example usage

var Insight = require('insight');

var insight = new Insight({
	// Google Analytics tracking code
	trackingCode: 'UA-XXXXXXXX-X'
});

// ask for permission the first time
if (insight.optOut === undefined) {
	return insight.askPermission();
}

insight.track('foo', 'bar');
// recorded in Analytics as `/foo/bar`

or a live example

Documentation

Insight(settings)

trackingCode

Type: string
Required

Your Google Analytics trackingCode

packagePath

Type: string
Default: 'package.json'

Relative path to your module package.json

packageName

Type: string
Default: Inferred from packageFile

Used instead of inferring it from packageFile
Requires you to also specify packageVersion

packageVersion

Type: string
Default: Inferred from packageFile

Used instead of inferring it from packageFile
Requires you to also specify packageName

Instance methods

.track(keyword, [keyword, ...])

Accepts keywords which ends up as a path in Analytics.

.track('init', 'backbone') becomes /init/backbone

.askPermission([message, callback])

Asks the user for permission to track and sets the optOut property. You can also choose to set this manually.

Optionally supply your own message and callback. The callback will be called with the arguments error and optOut when the prompt is done, and is useful for when you want to continue the execution while the prompt is running.

.optOut

Returns a boolean whether the user has opted out of tracking. Should preferably only be set by a user action, eg. a prompt.

License

BSD license and copyright Google