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Create monitors with Project monitors

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Create monitors with Project monitors

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Projects are the most powerful and sophisticated way to configure synthetic monitors in the Elastic Stack. Projects let you define your infrastructure as code, more commonly known as IaaC or Git-ops. With project monitors you organize your YAML configuration and JavaScript- or TypeScript-defined monitors on the filesystem, use Git for version control, and deploy via a CLI tool, usually executed on a CI/CD platform.

This is one of two approaches you can use to set up a synthetic monitor.

Prerequisites

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You must be signed into Kibana as a user with at least synthetics write permissions, and Monitor Management must be enabled by an administrator as described in Setup role.

Working with projects requires working with the Elastic Synthetics CLI tool, which can be invoked via the npx @elastic/synthetics command. Before getting started you’ll need to:

Install Node.js
Install the package:
```
npm install -g @elastic/synthetics
```
Confirm your system is setup correctly:
```
npx @elastic/synthetics -h
```

You should also decide where you want to run the monitors before getting started. You can run project monitors on one or both of the following:

Elastic’s global managed testing infrastructure: With Elastic’s global managed testing infrastructure, you can create and run monitors in multiple locations without having to manage your own infrastructure. Elastic takes care of software updates and capacity planning for you.
Private Locations: Private Locations allow you to run monitors from your own premises. To use Private Locations you must create a Private Location before continuing. For step-by-step instructions, refer to Monitor resources on private networks.

If you are setting up Synthetics for a deployment configured with traffic filters, connections into Elasticsearch are restricted and results will not be able to be written back into Elasticsearch unless granted. For more details, refer to Use Synthetics with traffic filters.

Create a project

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Start by creating your first project. Run the command below to create a new project named projects-test in the current directory.

npx @elastic/synthetics init projects-test

Then, follow the prompts on screen to setup the correct default variables for your project. When complete, set the SYNTHETICS_API_KEY environment variable in your terminal, which is used for authentication with your Elastic Stack:

To generate an API key:
1. Go to Synthetics in Kibana.
2. Click Settings.
3. Switch to the Project API Keys tab.
4. Click Generate Project API key.
  
  To generate a Project API key, you must be logged in as a user with the privileges described in Writer role.
Set the SYNTHETICS_API_KEY environment variable in your terminal. You will most likely want to set this permanently. This is done differently in Powershell and Bash.

If you are pushing to a Private Location, you must use an API key generated in 8.4 or higher.

Then, take a look at key files and directories inside your project:

journeys is where you’ll add .ts and .js files defining your browser monitors. When you create a new project, this directory will contain files defining sample monitors.
lightweight is where you’ll add .yaml files defining your lightweight monitors. When you create a new project, this directory will contain a file defining sample monitors.
synthetics.config.ts contains settings for your project. When you create a new project, it will contain some basic configuration options that you can customize later.
package.json contains NPM settings for your project. Learn more in the NPM documentation.
.github contains sample workflow files to use with GitHub Actions.

Examine sample monitors

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Inside the lightweight directory you’ll find sample lightweight monitors. Here’s an example of a YAML file defining a lightweight monitor:

# lightweight.yml
heartbeat.monitors:
- type: http
  name: Todos Lightweight
  id: todos-lightweight
  urls: "https://elastic.github.io/synthetics-demo/"
  schedule: '@every 1m'

For more details on lightweight monitor configuration options, refer to Configure lightweight monitors.

Inside the journeys directory you’ll find sample browser monitors. Here’s an example of a TypeScript file defining a browser monitor:

// example.journey.ts
import { journey, step, monitor, expect } from '@elastic/synthetics';
journey('My Example Journey', ({ page, params }) => {
  // Only relevant for the push command to create
  // monitors in Kibana
  monitor.use({
    id: 'example-monitor',
    schedule: 10,
  });
  step('launch application', async () => {
    await page.goto(params.url);
  });
  step('assert title', async () => {
    const header = await page.locator('h1');
    expect(await header.textContent()).toBe('todos');
  });
});

For more details on writing journeys and configuring browser monitors, refer to Scripting browser monitors.

Test and connect to the Elastic Stack

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While inside the project directory you can do two things with the npx @elastic/synthetics command:

Test browser-based monitors locally. To run all journeys defined in .ts and .js files:
```
npx @elastic/synthetics journeys
```
Push all monitor configurations to an Elastic deployment. Run the following command from inside your project:
```
npx @elastic/synthetics push --auth $SYNTHETICS_API_KEY --url <kibana-url>
```

One monitor will appear in the Synthetics app for each journey or lightweight monitor, and you’ll manage all monitors from your local environment. For more details on using the push command, refer to @elastic/synthetics push.

If you’ve added a Private Location, you can push to that Private Location.

To list available Private Locations, run the elastic-synthetics locations command with the Kibana URL for the deployment from which to fetch available locations.

View in Kibana

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When a monitor is created or updated, the first run might not occur immediately, but the time it takes for the first run to occur will be less than the monitor’s configured frequency. For example, if you create a monitor and configure it to run every 10 minutes, the first run will occur within 10 minutes of being created. After the first run, the monitor will begin running regularly based on the configured frequency. You can run a manual test if you want to see the results more quickly.

Then, go to the Synthetics app in Kibana. You should see your newly pushed monitors running. You can also go to the Management tab to see the monitors' configuration settings.

Next steps

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Learn more about:

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