Event context

You can add custom metadata to the events sent to Honeybadger Insights by using the event_context/1 function. This metadata will be included in each event call within the same process.

Note: This will add the metadata to all events sent, so be careful not to include too much data. Try to keep it to simple key/value pairs.

For example, you can add user ID information to all events (via plug):

defmodule MyAppWeb.Plug.UserContext do
  import Plug.Conn

  def init(opts), do: opts

  def call(conn, _opts) do
    user = get_session(conn, :user)
    Honeybadger.event_context(%{user_id: user.id})
    conn
  end
end

Event context is not automatically propagated to other processes. If you want to add context to events in a different process, you can use the Honeybadger.event_context/0 function to get the current context and pass it to the Honeybadger.event/1 function:

defmodule MyApp.MyGenServer do
  use GenServer

  def set(value) do
    GenServer.cast(__MODULE__, {:set, value, Honeybadger.event_context()})
  end

  def handle_cast({:set, value, hb_context}, _state) do
    Honeybadger.event_context(hb_context)

    Honeybadger.event("set_value", %{value: value})
    {:noreply, value}
  end
end

Inheriting context

If you know the parent process is alive and part of the process tree, you can use Honeybadger.inherit_event_context/0 to inherit the context from the parent process. This method works best if you are running OTP 25+.

Task.async(fn ->
  Honeybadger.inherit_event_context()
  # Do some work here
  Honeybadger.event("work", %{did: "some_work"})
end)

Scenarios when inheriting context is useful include:

• Direct process spawning (spawn, spawn_link)
• Task.async/1, Task.await/1, etc.
• Other scenarios where direct parent-child relationships are maintained

When explicit passing is needed:

• GenServer
• Supervised processes
• Processes started through other OTP abstractions