better_auth-telemetry

Opt-in telemetry package for Better Auth Ruby. Ports the upstream @better-auth/telemetry package (vendored at upstream/better-auth/1.6.9/packages/telemetry/) using only Ruby's standard library.

Telemetry is disabled by default. The package never sends data unless an operator explicitly opts in, and it is automatically skipped when the host process is running under RACK_ENV=test, RAILS_ENV=test, or APP_ENV=test. It is not configured through plugins: [...]; it is an optional gem that core soft-loads when available.

Installation

Add the gem:

gem "better_auth-telemetry"

When the gem is bundled, BetterAuth::Auth#initialize automatically wires auth.telemetry to a publisher. When the gem is not bundled, auth.telemetry is still safe to call: it returns a noop publisher whose #publish is a no-op. Core's behavior is unchanged either way.

Require better_auth/telemetry only when using the telemetry API directly:

require "better_auth/telemetry"

Opting in

Two equivalent ways to opt in. Either is sufficient on its own.

Via options

auth = BetterAuth.auth(
  secret: ENV.fetch("BETTER_AUTH_SECRET"),
  database: :postgres,
  telemetry: { enabled: true }
)

An explicit telemetry: { enabled: false } always wins over the env var: setting options[:telemetry][:enabled] = false disables telemetry even when BETTER_AUTH_TELEMETRY=1 is set.

Via environment variables

The package reads every variable through BetterAuth::Env.get, which honors both the BETTER_AUTH_* and OPEN_AUTH_* prefixes. The OPEN_AUTH_* form takes precedence over the BETTER_AUTH_* form when both are set.

Purpose	BETTER_AUTH_* form	OPEN_AUTH_* form
Opt in	BETTER_AUTH_TELEMETRY	OPEN_AUTH_TELEMETRY
Debug mode	BETTER_AUTH_TELEMETRY_DEBUG	OPEN_AUTH_TELEMETRY_DEBUG
Endpoint URL	BETTER_AUTH_TELEMETRY_ENDPOINT	OPEN_AUTH_TELEMETRY_ENDPOINT

A value is treated as truthy when it is non-empty, not equal to "0", and not equal to (case-insensitive) "false". Unset and empty are both treated as absent. No other telemetry environment variables are recognized.

export BETTER_AUTH_TELEMETRY=1
export BETTER_AUTH_TELEMETRY_ENDPOINT=https://telemetry.example.com/ingest

Test environment skip

When RACK_ENV, RAILS_ENV, or APP_ENV equals "test", telemetry is skipped even if it is otherwise opted in. Bypass this skip by setting context[:skip_test_check] = true. skip_test_check only bypasses the test gate; it does not opt telemetry in on its own.

BetterAuth::Telemetry.create(
  options,
  { skip_test_check: true } # opt-in still required via options or env
)

Debug mode

When debug mode is on (options[:telemetry][:debug] = true or BETTER_AUTH_TELEMETRY_DEBUG set to a truthy value), every event is logged via the configured logger using logger.info(JSON.pretty_generate(event)) and no HTTP request is made. This is the recommended mode for inspecting what the package would send before pointing it at a real endpoint.

auth = BetterAuth.auth(
  secret: ENV.fetch("BETTER_AUTH_SECRET"),
  database: :postgres,
  telemetry: { enabled: true, debug: true }
)

When neither debug mode nor custom_track is configured and an endpoint is set, the publisher starts a short-lived background thread that POSTs JSON events to the endpoint via Net::HTTP with a 5-second open + read timeout. HTTP telemetry is fire-and-forget, so constructing BetterAuth.auth is not blocked by a slow or unavailable endpoint. Any StandardError raised during HTTP delivery is rescued and logged at error level rather than propagated.

The custom_track injection seam

context[:custom_track] is a callable (typically a Proc or lambda) that receives every event in lieu of HTTP delivery. It is the testing seam used by the gem's own test suite, and it is also useful in production to forward events to an in-process queue, an audit log, or a custom collector.

recorder = []
custom_track = ->(event) { recorder << event }

publisher = BetterAuth::Telemetry.create(
  { secret: "x", database: :memory, telemetry: { enabled: true } },
  { custom_track: custom_track, skip_test_check: true }
)

publisher.publish(type: "ping", payload: { hello: "world" })

# recorder now contains the init event plus { type: "ping", payload: { hello: "world" }, anonymousId: "..." }

If custom_track raises, the exception is rescued, logged at error level, and swallowed; #publish always returns nil. The anonymousId on every event emitted by a single publisher is the same string, derived from BetterAuth::Telemetry.project_id(base_url).

The package accepts both snake_case and camelCase keys on the context for parity with callers mirroring upstream type definitions: :custom_track and :customTrack are equivalent, as are :skip_test_check and :skipTestCheck.

Differences from upstream

The upstream @better-auth/telemetry package targets multiple JavaScript runtimes (Node, Bun, Deno, edge) and ships two build entrypoints. This Ruby port collapses both upstream variants into a single server-side Ruby implementation and adapts every detector to idiomatic Ruby. The wire format preserves upstream camelCase keys and redaction rules so existing telemetry consumers can ingest events from Ruby projects without schema branching.

The intentional Ruby-specific deviations are:

• Single Ruby implementation. No Node, Bun, Deno, or edge runtime branches. Detectors do not probe for npm_config_user_agent, do not walk node_modules, and do not classify against JavaScript-only runtimes.
• runtime.engine extra key. The runtime payload includes an :engine key ("ruby", "jruby", "truffleruby") sourced from RUBY_ENGINE so consumers can distinguish Ruby implementations. Upstream emits only name and version.
• cpuSpeed omitted. Upstream's systemInfo.cpuSpeed field is not emitted at all on the Ruby side. There is no portable Ruby standard-library API for CPU speed, and emitting nil would invite consumers to assume the field can ever be populated.
• cpuModel always nil. The systemInfo.cpuModel key is present in the payload (so the schema matches upstream) but is always nil. Ruby has no portable standard-library API for the CPU model string.
• packageManager reflects Bundler, not npm. When Bundler is loadable and a Gemfile is locatable, payload.packageManager is { name: "bundler", version: Bundler::VERSION }. Otherwise the field is nil. Upstream's npm_config_user_agent parsing has no Ruby analogue.
• Framework probe list is Ruby-specific. The framework detector inspects Gem.loaded_specs for rails, sinatra, hanami, hanami-router, roda, grape, rack (in that order). Node-only frameworks (next, nuxt, astro, sveltekit, solid-start, tanstack-start, hono, express, elysia, expo) are intentionally not probed.
• Database probe list is Ruby-specific. The database detector falls back to Gem.loaded_specs for sequel, pg, mysql2, sqlite3, activerecord, mongoid, mongo, rom-sql (in that order) when no context override or BetterAuth::Adapters::* adapter class match is found.
• Standard library only HTTP. HTTP delivery uses Net::HTTP with a 5-second open + read timeout inside a short-lived background thread. No external HTTP-client gem is required at runtime, and HTTP delivery does not block BetterAuth.auth construction.
• Explicit false is a strong opt-out. telemetry: { enabled: false } disables telemetry even when BETTER_AUTH_TELEMETRY or OPEN_AUTH_TELEMETRY is truthy. This is intentionally stricter than upstream so application configuration can override process-wide env vars.
• snake_case canonical context keys, with camelCase synonyms accepted. The Ruby-canonical context keys are :custom_track, :database, :adapter, :skip_test_check. The package also accepts the camelCase variants (:customTrack, :skipTestCheck) for parity with callers mirroring upstream type definitions.
• appName is not emitted. The app_name value is used internally by BetterAuth::Telemetry.project_id to derive the anonymousId but is intentionally not emitted as a payload field, since it can be user-identifying.
• Public BetterAuth::Telemetry.reset_project_id! testing helper. A module-level helper is exposed for resetting the memoized anonymous_id between tests. It has no effect on production behavior and exists solely so test suites can assert deterministic project_id derivation across opt-in / opt-out cycles.

License

MIT