Overview

The Snowplow Tracking CLI is a native app to make it easy to send an event to Snowplow from the command line. Use this to embed Snowplow tracking into your shell scripts and terminal sessions.

Installing

You can download the binary for Linux, Windows, and macOS directly from Github:

• Linux AMD 64bit Binary
• Windows AMD 64bit Binary
• macOS AMD 64bit Binary
• macOS ARM 64bit Binary

There is also a Docker Container available at: https://hub.docker.com/r/snowplow/snowplow-tracking-cli

docker run snowplow/snowplow-tracking-cli:latest --collector={{COLLECTOR_DOMAIN}} --appid={{APP_ID}} --method=[POST|GET] --sdjson={{SELF_DESC_JSON}}

Usage

The command line interface is as follows:

snowplow-tracking-cli --collector={{COLLECTOR_DOMAIN}} --appid={{APP_ID}} --method=[POST|GET] --sdjson={{SELF_DESC_JSON}}

or:

snowplow-tracking-cli --collector={{COLLECTOR_DOMAIN}} --appid={{APP_ID}} --method=[POST|GET] --schema={{SCHEMA_URI}} --json={{JSON}}

where:

• --collector is the domain for your Snowplow collector, e.g. snowplow-collector.acme.com
• --appid is optional (not sent if not set)
• --method is optional. It defaults to GET
• --protocol is optional. It defaults to https
• --sdjson is a self-describing JSON of the standard form { "schema": "iglu:...", "data": { ... } }
• --schema is a schema URI, most likely of the form iglu:...
• --json is a (non-self-describing) JSON, of the form { ... }
• --ipaddress is optional. It defaults to an empty string
• --contexts is optional. It defaults to an empty JSON array []

The idea here is that you can either send in a self-describing JSON, or pass in the constituent parts (i.e. a regular JSON plus a schema URI) and the Snowplow Tracking CLI will construct the final self-describing JSON for you.

Examples

snowplow-tracking-cli --collector snowplow-collector.acme.com --appid myappid --method POST --schema iglu:com.snowplowanalytics.snowplow/event/jsonschema/1-0-0 --json "{\"hello\":\"world\"}"

snowplow-tracking-cli --collector snowplow-collector.acme.com --appid myappid --method POST --sdjson "{\"schema\":\"iglu:com.snowplowanalytics.snowplow/event/jsonschema/1-0-0\", \"data\":{\"hello\":\"world\"}}"

Maintainer Quick start

Assuming git is installed:

 host> git clone https://github.com/snowplow/snowplow-tracking-cli
 host> cd snowplow-tracking-cli
 host> make test
 host> make

To remove all build files:

 host> make clean

To format the golang code in the source directory:

 host> make format

Note: Always run make format before submitting any code.

Note: The make test command also generates a code coverage file which can be found at build/coverage/coverage.html.

Under the hood

There is no buffering in the Snowplow Tracking CLI - each event is sent as an individual payload whether GET or POST.

Under the hood, the app uses the Snowplow Golang Tracker.

The Snowplow Tracking CLI will exit once the Snowplow collector has responded. The return codes from snowplow-tracking-cli are as follows:

• 0 if the Snowplow collector responded with an OK status (2xx or 3xx)
• 4 if the Snowplow collector responded with a 4xx status
• 5 if the Snowplow collector responded with a 5xx status
• 1 for any other error

Building

Add snowplow-tracking-cli and its package dependencies to your go src directory:

$ go get -v github.com/snowplow/snowplow-tracking-cli

Once the get completes, you should find your new snowplow-tracking-cli executable sitting inside $GOPATH/bin/.

To update snowplow-tracking-cli dependencies, use go get with the -u option.

$ go get -u -v github.com/snowplow/snowplow-tracking-cli

Copyright and license

The Snowplow Tracking CLI is copyright 2016-2022 Snowplow Analytics Ltd.

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this software except in compliance with the License.

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.