Sentry Multi-Environment Setup

Overview

Configure Sentry properly across development, staging, and production environments.

Environment Configuration

Basic Setup

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

const environment = process.env.NODE_ENV || 'development';

Sentry.init({
  dsn: process.env.SENTRY_DSN,
  environment: environment,

  // Environment-specific settings
  enabled: environment !== 'development',
  debug: environment === 'development',
});

Environment-Specific Sample Rates

const sampleRates: Record<string, { errors: number; traces: number }> = {
  development: { errors: 1.0, traces: 1.0 },
  staging: { errors: 1.0, traces: 0.5 },
  production: { errors: 1.0, traces: 0.1 },
};

const rates = sampleRates[environment] || sampleRates.production;

Sentry.init({
  dsn: process.env.SENTRY_DSN,
  environment,
  sampleRate: rates.errors,
  tracesSampleRate: rates.traces,
});

Project Structure Options

Option 1: Single Project, Multiple Environments

Organization: mycompany
└── Project: myapp
    ├── Environment: development
    ├── Environment: staging
    └── Environment: production

Pros: Unified view, easier correlation Cons: Noisy in development, shared quotas

Option 2: Separate Projects Per Environment

Organization: mycompany
├── Project: myapp-development
├── Project: myapp-staging
└── Project: myapp-production

Pros: Clean separation, independent quotas Cons: Multiple DSNs to manage

Option 3: Hybrid (Recommended)

Organization: mycompany
├── Project: myapp-production    # Production only
└── Project: myapp-nonprod       # Dev + Staging

DSN Management

Environment Variables

# .env.development
SENTRY_DSN=https://xxx@sentry.io/dev-project

# .env.staging
SENTRY_DSN=https://xxx@sentry.io/staging-project

# .env.production
SENTRY_DSN=https://xxx@sentry.io/prod-project

Conditional DSN Loading

function getSentryDSN(): string | undefined {
  if (process.env.NODE_ENV === 'development') {
    return undefined; // Disable in development
  }
  return process.env.SENTRY_DSN;
}

Sentry.init({
  dsn: getSentryDSN(),
  environment: process.env.NODE_ENV,
});

Filtering by Environment

In Sentry Dashboard

1. Go to Issues or Performance
2. Use environment filter dropdown
3. Select specific environment

Programmatic Filtering

Sentry.init({
  dsn: process.env.SENTRY_DSN,
  environment: process.env.NODE_ENV,

  beforeSend(event) {
    // Add environment context
    event.tags = {
      ...event.tags,
      deploy_region: process.env.DEPLOY_REGION,
      feature_flags: process.env.FEATURE_FLAGS,
    };
    return event;
  },
});

Alert Rules by Environment

Production-Only Alerts

# Alert only for production errors
conditions:
  - type: event.environment
    value: production
  - type: event.level
    value: error
actions:
  - type: notify_email
    targetIdentifier: oncall@company.com

Staging Alerts (Lower Priority)

conditions:
  - type: event.environment
    value: staging
actions:
  - type: slack
    channel: #staging-alerts

Best Practices

1. Never use production DSN in development
2. Set appropriate sample rates per environment
3. Use environment tags consistently
4. Configure alerts per environment
5. Disable or reduce noise in development

Resources

• Sentry Environments
• Filtering Events