Sentry Local Dev Loop

Overview

Configure Sentry for efficient local development with appropriate settings.

Prerequisites

• Sentry SDK installed
• Development environment set up
• Separate Sentry project for development (recommended)

Instructions

Step 1: Environment-Based Configuration

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

const isDev = process.env.NODE_ENV === 'development';

Sentry.init({
  dsn: process.env.SENTRY_DSN,
  environment: isDev ? 'development' : 'production',

  // Higher sample rates in dev for testing
  tracesSampleRate: isDev ? 1.0 : 0.1,

  // Enable debug mode in development
  debug: isDev,

  // Don't send errors in development (optional)
  enabled: !isDev || process.env.SENTRY_DEV_ENABLED === 'true',
});

Step 2: Development-Only DSN

# .env.development
SENTRY_DSN=https://dev-key@org.ingest.sentry.io/dev-project

# .env.production
SENTRY_DSN=https://prod-key@org.ingest.sentry.io/prod-project

Step 3: Debug Output

// Enable verbose logging in development
if (isDev) {
  Sentry.addIntegration(new Sentry.Integrations.Debug({
    stringify: true,
  }));
}

Step 4: Local Testing Script

# test-sentry.sh
#!/bin/bash
export NODE_ENV=development
export SENTRY_DEV_ENABLED=true
node -e "
const Sentry = require('@sentry/node');
Sentry.init({ dsn: process.env.SENTRY_DSN, debug: true });
Sentry.captureMessage('Local dev test');
console.log('Check Sentry dashboard');
"

Output

• Environment-aware Sentry configuration
• Debug logging enabled for development
• Separate project/DSN for development events

Best Practices

Do

• Use separate Sentry projects for dev/staging/prod
• Enable debug mode during development
• Set higher sample rates for testing
• Use environment tags consistently

Don't

• Send all development errors to production Sentry
• Leave debug mode on in production
• Use same DSN across all environments
• Ignore rate limits during testing

Examples

Next.js Configuration

// sentry.client.config.ts
import * as Sentry from '@sentry/nextjs';

Sentry.init({
  dsn: process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_SENTRY_DSN,
  environment: process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_VERCEL_ENV || 'development',
  enabled: process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production',
  debug: process.env.NODE_ENV === 'development',
});

Python Flask Configuration

import sentry_sdk
from flask import Flask

app = Flask(__name__)

sentry_sdk.init(
    dsn=os.environ.get('SENTRY_DSN'),
    environment=os.environ.get('FLASK_ENV', 'development'),
    debug=os.environ.get('FLASK_ENV') == 'development',
    traces_sample_rate=1.0 if os.environ.get('FLASK_ENV') == 'development' else 0.1,
)

Resources

• Sentry Environment Config
• Sentry Debug Mode

Next Steps

Proceed to sentry-sdk-patterns for SDK best practices.