How telemetry plugins work

A telemetry plugin for Che collects workspace usage data and sends it to your analytics backend. The plugin extends the AbstractAnalyticsManager class with methods for event handling, activity tracking, and shutdown.

The AbstractAnalyticsManager class requires the following method implementations:

  • isEnabled() - determines whether the telemetry backend is functioning correctly. This can mean always returning true, or have more complex checks, for example, returning false when a connection property is missing.

  • destroy() - cleanup method that is run before shutting down the telemetry backend. This method sends the WORKSPACE_STOPPED event.

  • onActivity() - notifies that some activity is still happening for a given user. This is mainly used to send WORKSPACE_INACTIVE events.

  • onEvent() - submits telemetry events to the telemetry server, such as WORKSPACE_USED or WORKSPACE_STARTED.

  • increaseDuration() - increases the duration of a current event rather than sending many events in a small frame of time.

A finished example of the telemetry backend is available in the devworkspace-telemetry-example-plugin repository. For procedures to implement each method and the complete example code, see Additional resources.

Additional resources