External HTTP requests

Flare can collect information about the external HTTP requests that are being made from your application. This includes:

• The request method
• The request URL
• The request body size
• The request headers
• The response status code
• The response body size
• The response headers

This functionality is enabled by default, but you can disable it by calling ignoreExternalRequests() on the Flare config:

$config->ignoreExternalHttp();

You can configure the maximum number of external HTTP requests tracked while collecting data in the case of an error as follows:

$config->collectExternalHttp(maxItemsWithErrors: 10);

It is possible to filter out headers. You can read more about this here.

Collecting Guzzle HTTP requests

Flare can automatically collect Guzzle HTTP requests. This is done by using a middleware that will be added to the Guzzle client:

use GuzzleHttp\Client;
use GuzzleHttp\HandlerStack;
use Spatie\FlareClient\Recorders\ExternalHttpRecorder\Guzzle\FlareMiddleware;

$stack = HandlerStack::create();

$stack->push(new FlareMiddleware($flare));

$client = new Client([
    'handler' => $stack,
]);

You can also use the FlareHandlerStack, which requires less code:

use Spatie\FlareClient\Recorders\ExternalHttpRecorder\Guzzle\FlareHandlerStack;

$client = new Client([
    'handler' => new FlareHandlerStack($flare)
]);

Manually collecting external HTTP requests

We cannot automatically collect external HTTP requests in the framework-agnostic version of the package. You can manually add external HTTP requests as such:

$flare->externalHttp()->recordSending(
    url: 'https://example.com',
    method: 'POST',
);

You can also add the size of the request body and the headers:

$flare->externalHttp()->recordSending(
    url: 'https://example.com',
    method: 'POST',
    bodySize: 1234,
    headers: $request->headers,
);

It is also possible to add extra attributes to the request:

$flare->externalHttp()->recordSending(
    url: 'https://example.com',
    method: 'POST',
    attributes: [
        'http.request.cookies' => json_encode($request->cookies),
    ]
);

When the request ends, you can call the recordReceived method:

$flare->externalHttp()->recordReceived(
    statusCode: 200,
);

Here you can also add the size of the response body and the headers:

$flare->externalHttp()->recordReceived(
    responseStatusCode: 200,
    responseBodySize: 1234,
    responseHeaders: $response->headers,
);

Or add extra attributes:

$flare->externalHttp()->recordReceived(
    statusCode: 200,
    attributes: [
        'server.port' => 80,
    ]
);

When the request failed due to a connection error, you can call the recordConnectionFailed method:

$flare->externalHttp()->recordConnectionFailed(
    'Connection refused',
);