Sentry Performance Tracing

Overview

Sentry performance monitoring captures distributed traces across your application stack, measuring latency, identifying bottlenecks, and tracking Web Vitals. The v8 SDK uses a span-based API where Sentry.startSpan() replaces the deprecated startTransaction(). Auto-instrumentation covers HTTP, database queries, and framework routes out of the box. Manual spans let you measure business-critical operations. Combined with profiling (profilesSampleRate), you get function-level flamegraphs attached to traces.

Prerequisites

• Sentry SDK v8+ installed (@sentry/node >= 8.0.0 or sentry-sdk >= 2.0.0)
• tracesSampleRate > 0 set in Sentry.init() — performance data is not collected at zero
• Performance monitoring enabled in your Sentry project settings (Settings > Performance)
• For distributed tracing: all participating services must have Sentry SDK initialized

Instructions

Step 1 — Configure Tracing and Profiling in SDK Init

Set tracesSampleRate to control what percentage of requests generate traces. Use tracesSampler for dynamic, per-endpoint sampling. Add profilesSampleRate to attach function-level flamegraphs to sampled transactions.

TypeScript (@sentry/node):

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

Sentry.init({
  dsn: process.env.SENTRY_DSN,
  tracesSampleRate: 0.2, // 20% of transactions in production

  // Profiling — profiles 10% of sampled transactions
  profilesSampleRate: 0.1,

  // Dynamic sampling overrides tracesSampleRate when defined
  tracesSampler: (samplingContext) => {
    const { name, attributes } = samplingContext;

    // Drop health checks entirely — no trace data
    if (name === 'GET /health') return 0;

    // Always trace payment flows
    if (name?.includes('/api/payment')) return 1.0;

    // Higher sampling for API routes
    if (name?.startsWith('GET /api/') || name?.startsWith('POST /api/')) return 0.2;

    // Default: 5% for everything else
    return 0.05;
  },
});

Python (sentry-sdk):

import os
import sentry_sdk

sentry_sdk.init(
    dsn=os.environ["SENTRY_DSN"],
    traces_sample_rate=0.2,       # 20% of transactions
    profiles_sample_rate=0.1,     # 10% of sampled transactions get profiled

    # Dynamic sampling via traces_sampler (overrides traces_sample_rate)
    traces_sampler=lambda ctx: (
        0.0 if ctx.get("transaction_context", {}).get("name") == "GET /health"
        else 1.0 if "/api/payment" in ctx.get("transaction_context", {}).get("name", "")
        else 0.2
    ),
)

Key decisions:

• Start at tracesSampleRate: 0.2 and adjust based on volume and budget
• tracesSampler takes priority when defined — tracesSampleRate becomes the fallback
• profilesSampleRate is relative to sampled transactions (0.1 means 10% of the 20% that are sampled)
• Return 0 from tracesSampler to explicitly drop a transaction, not false

Step 2 — Create Custom Spans for Business Logic

Auto-instrumentation covers HTTP and database calls, but business-critical operations need manual spans. The v8 API provides three span creation methods for different use cases.

Sentry.startSpan() — auto-ending spans (most common):

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

const result = await Sentry.startSpan(
  {
    name: 'order.process',
    op: 'task',
    attributes: {
      'order.id': orderId,
      'order.items': items.length,
    },
  },
  async (span) => {
    // Nested spans automatically become children of the parent
    const validated = await Sentry.startSpan(
      { name: 'order.validate', op: 'validation' },
      async () => validateOrder(order)
    );

    const charged = await Sentry.startSpan(
      { name: 'payment.charge', op: 'http.client' },
      async () => chargePayment(order.total)
    );

    // Set span status based on outcome
    if (!charged.success) {
      span.setStatus({ code: 2, message: 'payment_failed' });
    }

    // Add custom measurements visible in Performance dashboard
    Sentry.setMeasurement('order.item_count', items.length, 'none');
    Sentry.setMeasurement('order.total_cents', order.total, 'none');

    return { validated, charged };
  }
);
// Span automatically ends when callback resolves or rejects

Sentry.startSpanManual() — for spans that cross callback boundaries:

Sentry.startSpanManual(
  { name: 'queue.process', op: 'queue.task' },
  (span) => {
    queue.on('message', async (msg) => {
      try {
        await processMessage(msg);
        span.setStatus({ code: 1 }); // OK
      } catch (error) {
        span.setStatus({ code: 2, message: 'processing_failed' });
        Sentry.captureException(error);
      } finally {
        span.end(); // REQUIRED — must call end() manually
      }
    });
  }
);

Sentry.startInactiveSpan() — background work without changing active context:

const span = Sentry.startInactiveSpan({
  name: 'cache.warmup',
  op: 'cache',
});

await warmCache(); // Other spans created here won't be children of this span

span.end();

Span attributes and measurements:

await Sentry.startSpan(
  { name: 'search.query', op: 'db.query' },
  async (span) => {
    const start = Date.now();
    const results = await searchIndex(query);

    // Attributes — appear in span details, filterable in Sentry UI
    span.setAttribute('search.query', query);
    span.setAttribute('search.results_count', results.length);
    span.setAttribute('search.index', indexName);

    // Measurements — appear in Performance dashboard charts
    Sentry.setMeasurement('search.duration_ms', Date.now() - start, 'millisecond');
    Sentry.setMeasurement('search.result_count', results.length, 'none');

    return results;
  }
);

Python equivalent:

import sentry_sdk

with sentry_sdk.start_span(op="task", name="process_order") as span:
    span.set_data("order_id", order_id)
    span.set_data("item_count", len(items))

    with sentry_sdk.start_span(op="validation", name="validate_input"):
        validate(input_data)

    with sentry_sdk.start_span(op="http.client", name="charge_payment"):
        result = charge(payment)

    if not result.success:
        span.set_status("internal_error")

Step 3 — Enable Auto-Instrumentation and Distributed Tracing

SDK v8 auto-instruments most I/O without configuration. For distributed tracing across services, Sentry propagates sentry-trace and baggage headers automatically on HTTP calls. Custom propagation is needed only for non-HTTP transports (message queues, gRPC, etc.).

Auto-instrumented integrations (Node.js v8):

Integration	What it traces	Enabled by
httpIntegration()	All outbound HTTP/HTTPS requests	Default
expressIntegration()	Express route handlers and middleware	Default with Express
fastifyIntegration()	Fastify routes	Default with Fastify
graphqlIntegration()	GraphQL resolvers	Default with graphql
mongoIntegration()	MongoDB queries	Default with mongodb driver
postgresIntegration()	PostgreSQL queries (pg driver)	Default with pg
mysqlIntegration()	MySQL queries	Default with mysql2
redisIntegration()	Redis commands	Default with ioredis/redis
prismaIntegration()	Prisma ORM queries	Default with @prisma/client

Express with custom middleware spans:

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

const app = express();

// Sentry auto-instruments all Express routes
// Add custom spans for specific middleware:
app.use('/api', async (req, res, next) => {
  await Sentry.startSpan(
    { name: 'middleware.auth', op: 'middleware' },
    async () => {
      req.user = await authenticateRequest(req);
    }
  );
  next();
});

// Parameterized route names prevent cardinality explosion
// Sentry automatically uses '/api/users/:id' not '/api/users/12345'
app.get('/api/users/:id', async (req, res) => {
  const user = await Sentry.startSpan(
    { name: 'db.getUser', op: 'db.query' },
    () => db.users.findById(req.params.id)
  );
  res.json(user);
});

// Must be after all routes
Sentry.setupExpressErrorHandler(app);

Django/Flask auto-instrumentation (Python):

import sentry_sdk
from sentry_sdk.integrations.django import DjangoIntegration

sentry_sdk.init(
    dsn=os.environ["SENTRY_DSN"],
    integrations=[DjangoIntegration()],
    traces_sample_rate=0.2,
    profiles_sample_rate=0.1,
)
# All Django views, middleware, and template rendering are traced automatically

# Flask equivalent
from sentry_sdk.integrations.flask import FlaskIntegration

sentry_sdk.init(
    dsn=os.environ["SENTRY_DSN"],
    integrations=[FlaskIntegration()],
    traces_sample_rate=0.2,
)

# FastAPI equivalent
from sentry_sdk.integrations.fastapi import FastApiIntegration
from sentry_sdk.integrations.starlette import StarletteIntegration

sentry_sdk.init(
    dsn=os.environ["SENTRY_DSN"],
    integrations=[FastApiIntegration(), StarletteIntegration()],
    traces_sample_rate=0.2,
)

Distributed tracing — custom header propagation:

When Sentry cannot automatically propagate headers (non-HTTP transports, custom fetch wrappers), extract and inject manually:

// Service A: Extract trace headers from the active span
const activeSpan = Sentry.getActiveSpan();
const traceHeaders = {
  'sentry-trace': Sentry.spanToTraceHeader(activeSpan),
  'baggage': Sentry.spanToBaggageHeader(activeSpan),
};

// Pass headers to downstream service via HTTP, message queue, etc.
await fetch('https://service-b.internal/api/process', {
  headers: { ...traceHeaders, 'Content-Type': 'application/json' },
  body: JSON.stringify(payload),
});

// Service B: Sentry SDK automatically reads sentry-trace and baggage
// from incoming request headers and continues the same trace

Browser Web Vitals (@sentry/browser):

The browser SDK automatically captures Core Web Vitals when tracing is enabled:

• LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) — loading performance
• INP (Interaction to Next Paint) — responsiveness (replaced FID in 2024)
• CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) — visual stability
• TTFB (Time to First Byte) — server response time

These appear in the Web Vitals tab of your Sentry Performance dashboard. No additional configuration beyond tracesSampleRate > 0 in the browser SDK.

Output

• Distributed traces visible in Sentry Performance > Trace View as span waterfalls
• Auto-instrumented spans for HTTP, database, and framework operations
• Custom spans with attributes measuring business-critical operations
• Profiling flamegraphs attached to sampled transactions
• Web Vitals (LCP, INP, CLS, TTFB) tracked for frontend performance
• Custom measurements charted in Performance dashboard
• Cross-service traces linked via sentry-trace and baggage headers

Error Handling

Error	Cause	Solution
No transactions in Performance tab	tracesSampleRate is 0 or not set	Set tracesSampleRate > 0 in Sentry.init() or define tracesSampler
Spans not nested correctly	Child span created outside parent callback	Call Sentry.startSpan() inside the parent startSpan callback to establish parent-child
High cardinality warning in Sentry UI	Dynamic values in span/transaction names	Use parameterized names (/api/users/:id) not literal values (/api/users/12345)
Distributed trace broken between services	sentry-trace/baggage headers not forwarded	Verify both headers are propagated in inter-service HTTP calls
startSpanManual span never ends	Missing span.end() call	Always call span.end() in a finally block
Profiling data missing	profilesSampleRate not set or @sentry/profiling-node not installed	Set profilesSampleRate > 0 and install the profiling package
tracesSampler errors silently	Sampler function throws	Wrap sampler logic in try/catch, return a fallback rate
Performance data but no Web Vitals	Browser SDK not initialized or tracesSampleRate is 0 on client	Ensure @sentry/browser or @sentry/react is initialized with tracing

Examples

TypeScript — Full Express API with Profiling

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

Sentry.init({
  dsn: process.env.SENTRY_DSN,
  tracesSampleRate: 0.2,
  profilesSampleRate: 0.1,
});

const app = express();

app.post('/api/orders', async (req, res) => {
  const order = await Sentry.startSpan(
    { name: 'order.create', op: 'task', attributes: { 'order.source': 'api' } },
    async (span) => {
      const validated = await Sentry.startSpan(
        { name: 'order.validate', op: 'validation' },
        () => validateOrder(req.body)
      );

      const saved = await Sentry.startSpan(
        { name: 'order.save', op: 'db.query' },
        () => db.orders.create(validated)
      );

      await Sentry.startSpan(
        { name: 'notification.send', op: 'http.client' },
        () => notifyWarehouse(saved.id)
      );

      Sentry.setMeasurement('order.total_cents', saved.total, 'none');
      return saved;
    }
  );

  res.status(201).json(order);
});

Sentry.setupExpressErrorHandler(app);
app.listen(3000);

Python — FastAPI with Custom Spans

import os
import sentry_sdk
from sentry_sdk.integrations.fastapi import FastApiIntegration
from sentry_sdk.integrations.starlette import StarletteIntegration
from fastapi import FastAPI

sentry_sdk.init(
    dsn=os.environ["SENTRY_DSN"],
    integrations=[FastApiIntegration(), StarletteIntegration()],
    traces_sample_rate=0.2,
    profiles_sample_rate=0.1,
)

app = FastAPI()

@app.post("/api/orders")
async def create_order(payload: OrderRequest):
    with sentry_sdk.start_span(op="task", name="order.create") as span:
        span.set_data("order_source", "api")

        with sentry_sdk.start_span(op="validation", name="order.validate"):
            validated = validate_order(payload)

        with sentry_sdk.start_span(op="db.query", name="order.save"):
            saved = await db.orders.create(validated)

        with sentry_sdk.start_span(op="http.client", name="notification.send"):
            await notify_warehouse(saved.id)

    return {"id": saved.id, "status": "created"}

Resources

• Set Up Tracing — Node.js
• Custom Instrumentation
• Distributed Tracing
• Python Performance Monitoring
• Profiling — Node.js
• Web Vitals
• Performance Monitoring Product Guide

Next Steps

• Alerting on performance regressions: Configure Performance Alerts in Sentry to trigger when p95 latency exceeds thresholds or throughput drops
• Custom dashboards: Build dashboards in Sentry using custom measurements (Sentry.setMeasurement()) to track business KPIs alongside latency
• Span sampling in high-volume services: Use tracesSampler to selectively trace slow endpoints at higher rates while keeping fast endpoints low
• Connect to error tracking: Errors captured with Sentry.captureException() inside a traced span automatically link to that trace in the Sentry UI