Production deployment checklist for Sentry integration.
Use when preparing a production deployment, auditing an existing
Sentry setup, or running a go-live readiness review.
Trigger: "sentry production checklist", "deploy sentry",
"sentry go-live", "audit sentry config", "production readiness sentry".
Production deployment checklist for Sentry integration.
Use when preparing a production deployment, auditing an existing
Sentry setup, or running a go-live readiness review.
Trigger: "sentry production checklist", "deploy sentry",
"sentry go-live", "audit sentry config", "production readiness sentry".
Walk through every production-critical Sentry configuration item before a deploy — SDK init options, source map uploads, alert routing, PII scrubbing, sample rate tuning, and test error verification. Covers @sentry/node (v8+) and sentry-cli workflows.
Use when:
Preparing a first production deploy with Sentry
Auditing an existing Sentry config after an incident
Running a go-live readiness review
Onboarding a new service into Sentry monitoring
Prerequisites
@sentry/node (or framework-specific SDK like @sentry/nextjs, @sentry/react) installed
Sentry project created with a dedicated production DSN (separate from dev/staging)
sentry-cli installed globally or as a devDependency (npm i -D @sentry/cli)
SENTRY_AUTH_TOKEN with scope project:releases available in CI environment
Build pipeline that produces source maps
Instructions
Work through each section in order. Check off each item as you verify it.
Step 1 — DSN and Environment Variables
DSN set via environment variable, not hardcoded in source code
// CORRECT — DSN from environmentSentry.init({
dsn: process.env.SENTRY_DSN,
});
// WRONG — hardcoded DSN leaks project ID and org infoSentry.init({
dsn: 'https://abc123@o456.ingest.sentry.io/789',
});
Verify with: grep -r "ingest.sentry.io" src/ --include="*.ts" --include="*.js" — should return zero results.
SENTRY_DSN set in production environment (not just .env.local)
SENTRY_ORG and SENTRY_PROJECT set for CLI operations
The release value must match exactly what you pass to sentry-cli releases new. Mismatches break source map resolution and release health tracking.
Step 4 — Error Sample Rate
sampleRate tuned — not 1.0 in high-traffic production
Sentry.init({
// For most apps: 0.1 to 0.25 captures enough to spot trends// without burning through your event quotasampleRate: 0.25, // 25% of errors captured// For low-traffic apps or critical services, 1.0 is fine// sampleRate: 1.0,
});
Traffic level
Recommended sampleRate
< 10K errors/day
1.0
10K-100K errors/day
0.25
> 100K errors/day
0.1
Step 5 — Traces Sample Rate
tracesSampleRate tuned (0.05-0.2 for production)
Sentry.init({
tracesSampleRate: 0.1, // 10% of transactions traced// Or use tracesSampler for endpoint-specific ratestracesSampler: (samplingContext) => {
const name = samplingContext.transactionContext?.name || '';
// Never trace health checksif (name.includes('/health') || name.includes('/ready')) return0;
// Always trace paymentsif (name.includes('/checkout') || name.includes('/payment')) return1.0;
// Default: 10%return0.1;
},
});
Never ship tracesSampleRate: 1.0 in production — it generates massive event volume and will exhaust your quota within hours on any real workload.
Step 6 — Source Map Upload
Source maps uploaded via sentry-cli releases files
#!/bin/bash# Run in CI after build, before deployset -euo pipefail
VERSION="${SENTRY_RELEASE:-$(git rev-parse --short HEAD)}"# Create the release
sentry-cli releases new "$VERSION"# Associate commits for suspect commits feature
sentry-cli releases set-commits "$VERSION" --auto
# Upload source maps from build output
sentry-cli releases files "$VERSION" upload-sourcemaps ./dist \
--url-prefix '~/static/js' \
--validate
# Mark release as deployed
sentry-cli releases finalize "$VERSION"
sentry-cli releases deploys "$VERSION" new -e production
--url-prefix matches the path where assets are served (e.g., ~/static/js or ~/assets)
--validate flag is used to catch malformed maps at build time
Source maps are NOT served to browsers (add to .gitignore or strip from deploy artifact)
Verify upload succeeded:
sentry-cli releases files "$VERSION" list
# Should show .js and .js.map files with correct paths
Step 7 — beforeSend Noise Filter
beforeSend configured to drop noise
Sentry.init({
beforeSend(event, hint) {
const error = hint?.originalException;
const message = typeof error === 'string' ? error : error?.message || '';
// Drop browser noise that is never actionableconst noise = [
'ResizeObserver loop',
'Non-Error promise rejection captured',
/Loading chunk \d+ failed/,
'Network request failed',
'AbortError',
'TypeError: cancelled',
'TypeError: Failed to fetch',
];
for (const pattern of noise) {
if (pattern instanceofRegExp ? pattern.test(message) : message.includes(pattern)) {
returnnull; // Drop this event
}
}
// Scrub auth headers if they leak into request contextif (event.request?.headers) {
delete event.request.headers['Authorization'];
delete event.request.headers['Cookie'];
delete event.request.headers['X-API-Key'];
}
return event;
},
});
Step 8 — PII Scrubbing
PII scrubbing enabled: sendDefaultPii: false
Sentry.init({
sendDefaultPii: false, // Do NOT send cookies, user IPs, or auth headers// If you need user context, set it explicitly with scrubbed data// Sentry.setUser({ id: user.id }); // ID only, no email/name
});
Also verify in Sentry project settings:
Settings > Security & Privacy > Data Scrubbing is enabled
IP Address collection is disabled if not needed
Sensitive Fields list includes your app-specific fields (e.g., ssn, creditCard)
Step 9 — Alert Rules
Alert rules configured for production environment
Set up these minimum alert rules in Alerts > Create Alert Rule:
Alert
Type
Condition
Action
New issue in production
Issue
First seen, environment:production
Slack channel + email
Regression detected
Issue
Regressed, environment:production
Slack channel
Error spike
Metric
Error count > N in 5 min
PagerDuty (on-call)
P95 latency breach
Metric
p95(transaction.duration) > threshold
Slack #performance
Crash-free rate drop
Release health
Crash-free sessions < 99%
Email + Slack
Alert actions route to correct channels (not a dead channel)
PagerDuty / OpsGenie integration tested with a test alert
Step 10 — Process Exit Flush (Serverless / CLI)
Sentry.flush() called before process exit
For serverless functions, CLI tools, or any short-lived process, events may be lost if the process exits before the SDK flushes its queue:
