Browser Journey

Browser Journey

Plugin: dem.plugin Module: journey

Overview

Monitor whether browser workflow checks execute and pass with real Playwright Test. Inspect test outcomes, attempt durations and retained failure details.

Runs the configured Playwright Test entry with sandboxed Chromium at the native job interval, using one worker without retries. Workflows can perform the actions their scripts request on the target website. Configuration Test validates preparation without executing the workflow.

This collector is only supported on the following platforms:

• Linux

This collector supports collecting metrics from multiple instances of this integration, including remote instances.

Default Behavior

Auto-Detection

Jobs require explicit configuration; no websites or scripts are discovered automatically.

Limits

Empty suites, skipped tests and expected failures cannot establish successful coverage. A failed check takes precedence over incomplete coverage. Waiting and running attempts retain the prior result for diagnosis; that observation becomes stale after two collection intervals and does not imply recovery. Failure screenshots are disabled unless requested.

Performance Impact

Each attempt starts a fresh browser and consumes CPU, memory and target website requests. Increasing update_every reduces frequency. Jobs share one browser admission slot, so concurrent due jobs can wait. Optional captures consume local disk space.

Setup

Prerequisites

Prepare the browser runtime

Configure the Node executable, pinned Playwright and Lighthouse dependencies, and full Chromium binary in the runtime section of dem.conf. Chromium must run with its sandbox enabled as the Netdata service account. Restart dem.plugin after changing runtime paths; the plugin does not download dependencies. Follow the DEM runtime preparation guide for the pinned versions and setup commands.

Configuration

Options

Options apply independently to each native job.

via File

The configuration file name for this integration is dem/journey.conf.

You can edit the configuration file using the edit-config script from the Netdata config directory.

cd /etc/netdata 2>/dev/null || cd /opt/netdata/etc/netdata
sudo ./edit-config dem/journey.conf

Examples

Monitor a home page

Create one native browser monitor after preparing the runtime.

jobs:
  - name: home
    script: |
      import { test, expect } from '@playwright/test';
      test('home page', async ({ page }) => {
        await page.goto('https://example.org/');
        await expect(page).toHaveTitle(/Example Domain/);
      });

Live Data

Use these process-wide Functions through the Agent or Cloud for both journey and Lighthouse jobs. Invoke their public synthetics-* names with the documented filters; no job selector or active browser is required.

Synthetic monitors

Invoke synthetics-checks. Active native monitors and their latest observation. Disabled and failed-startup configuration remains in native job status. Freshness belongs to the last observation, independently of a waiting or running attempt.

Prerequisites

No additional configuration is required.

Parameters

Returns

At most limit active jobs, with independent current-attempt state and last-observation freshness. The response includes process artifact retained_bytes, protected_bytes and cleanup_errors under artifacts. Disabled and failed-startup jobs are visible through native configuration status.

Synthetic runs

Invoke synthetics-runs. Retained attempts filtered by journal saved time. after and before accept Unix seconds or negative offsets from now; omitted bounds cover retained history through now. Results are capped at 2000 and disclose truncation.

Prerequisites

No additional configuration is required.

Parameters

Returns

At most limit retained attempts selected by saved time, with explicit truncated and effective time bounds. Zero or missing execution timestamps and missing durations are null rather than fabricated measurements.

Synthetic run detail

Invoke synthetics-run. One retained or latest active attempt with original test phases, errors, counts, nullable lab measurements and bounded reporter events. Missing completion means no verified terminal observation.

Prerequisites

No additional configuration is required.

Parameters

Returns

One row per retained reporter event, preserving actual and expected status and failure phase. The run object also contains test counts, nullable lab metrics, capture state, artifact metadata and history errors; dropped_events discloses omitted event detail.

Synthetic artifacts

Invoke synthetics-artifact. Retained capture metadata for one run; file bytes are verified when fetched. Supplying artifact_id requests base64-encoded bytes and requires administrator-equivalent permissions. Screenshots and HTML reports may contain sensitive content. Missing retained files are expired or unavailable; fetches are limited to 5 MiB.

Prerequisites

No additional configuration is required.

Parameters

Returns

Recorded capture metadata with retained-manifest availability. Fetch verifies content and returns encoding=base64 and data_base64 without rendering HTML. A missing recorded capture returns expired_or_unavailable, which does not prove why the file is absent.

Troubleshooting

Other Problems

No conclusive observations

Inspect native job status and synthetic inventory for runtime preparation errors, waiting attempts or execution inability. Open the latest retained run for errors and actual failure phases. Missing measurements are gaps; stale, inconclusive and cancelled observations are not recovery.