Instrument mobile apps with Dynatrace React Native plugin

Our React Native plugin allows you to auto-instrument your React Native apps with Dynatrace OneAgent for Android and iOS. The plugin provides an API to add manual instrumentation and is compatible with raw, ejected React Native projects.

Follow the steps below to set up the Dynatrace React Native plugin for your mobile app.

Create a mobile app in Dynatrace

Set up React Native plugin

Build and run your app

Prerequisites

• React Native version 0.59+
• Gradle version 6.1.1+
• React Native instrumentation: ES6 classes or later
• Android version 5.0+ (API 21+)
• iOS version 11+

Create a mobile app in the Dynatrace UI

To create a mobile application in the Dynatrace web UI

1. In the Dynatrace menu, go to Deploy Dynatrace.
2. Scroll down to the Mobile app monitoring section and select Set up mobile monitoring.
3. Enter a name for your application and select Create mobile app. The application settings page opens.

Set up React Native plugin

1. From the application settings, select Instrumentation wizard > React Native. The instrumentation wizard guides you through the set-up process.

2. Install the Dynatrace React Native plugin:

   React Native 0.60.0+React Native 0.59.0

   • Call npm install @dynatrace/react-native-plugin.
   • iOS only If you use pods, go to the ios directory and execute pod install to install the new Dynatrace dependency to your Xcode project.

   • Call react-native install @dynatrace/react-native-plugin.
   • Call react-native link @dynatrace/react-native-plugin to add the dependencies to your native projects.
   • iOS only If you use pods, go to the ios directory and execute pod install to install the new Dynatrace dependency to your Xcode project.

3. Register the Dynatrace transformer: in the project's root, either create or extend metro.config.js so that it contains the transformer.babelTransformerPath property:

   plaintextcopydownload
   module.exports = {
     transformer: {
       babelTransformerPath: require.resolve('@dynatrace/react-native-plugin/lib/dynatrace-transformer')
     },
   
     reporter: require("@dynatrace/react-native-plugin/lib/dynatrace-reporter")
   };

4. From the instrumentation wizard, download the dynatrace.config.js file and place it into the root directory of your project next to app.json. If you're upgrading from a previous version of the Dynatrace React Native plugin, copy the old configuration values from dynatrace.config to the new dynatrace.config.js file.

5. Update the Babel configuration in the babel.config.js file if you're using the following versions of Metro or Expo:

   • Metro 0.72.0+
   • Expo 44.0.0+ or babel-preset-expo 9.0.0+
   MetroExpo

   Using metro-react-native-babel-preset:

   plaintextcopydownload
   module.exports = {
     presets: [
       ['module:metro-react-native-babel-preset'],
     ],
     plugins: [
         [
             '@babel/plugin-transform-react-jsx',
             {
                 runtime: 'automatic',
                 importSource: "@dynatrace/react-native-plugin"
             },
         ],
     ],
   };

   Using babel-preset-expo:

   plaintextcopydownload
   module.exports = {
     presets: [
       ['babel-preset-expo',
         {
           jsxRuntime: 'automatic',
           jsxImportSource: '@dynatrace/react-native-plugin',
         },
       ],
     ],
   };

Build and run your app

• Run npx instrumentDynatrace in the root of your React Native project to apply the configuration set in the dynatrace.config.js file. This command configures both Android and iOS projects.

• Execute react-native run-android or react-native run-ios to rebuild and run your app.

  If you're upgrading to React Native 0.70+ or using the @react-native-community/cli 9.x+ version, note that our automated script running before every react-native run-android or react-native run-ios command is no longer working. If you've changed the configuration in the dynatrace.config.js file, execute npx instrumentDynatrace to apply the new configuration.

• Whenever you change the configuration in the dynatrace.config.js file, run the following commands and then rebuild your app.

  1. npx instrumentDynatrace to apply the new configuration from dynatrace.config.js
  2. react-native start --reset-cache to reset the cache. Not resetting the cache might result in a mixture of old and new configurations.

• Specify custom paths via custom arguments.

User action naming

See User action naming rules for more details on user action naming in Dynatrace.

React views

• displayName: Checks if React views have a display name set.
• class name: If the display name is unavailable, the class name is used by taking the name property from the constructor.

Touchables

• Accessibility label
• If both are not set, searches for inner text
• For an image button, searches for the source

Button Title

• Accessibility label
• For an image button, searches for the source
• If nothing is found, searches for inner text

If you minify the React Native code, you can use the keep_classname setting to preserve the class name.