/dd-browser-sdk

Set up Datadog sourcemap upload via the build plugin

Adds build-time sourcemap upload to a frontend project using the Datadog build plugin. Sourcemaps are uploaded as part of the build, so every deploy ships un-minified stack traces to RUM and Error Tracking. Git metadata is attached automatically, which links errors back to source files.

Follow steps 1-7 in order.

Before starting any work: Create exactly 7 todo items — one per step below. Do not begin implementation until all 7 todos are created. Do not compress or merge steps.

Never invent a value. Three fields (service, releaseVersion, minifiedPathPrefix) must match how the app is actually deployed. If you cannot read a value from the repo, stop and ask the user. Do not write a placeholder, a TODO, or a guessed hostname.

Scope

In scope: projects built by esbuild, Rollup, Rspack, Vite, or webpack — including meta-frameworks that expose one of these directly in their own config file (e.g. Remix/React Router v7+ framework mode, SvelteKit, Nuxt via vite.config.ts/nuxt.config.ts's vite: key). If Step 1's config-file search below finds a real bundler config, the meta-framework sitting on top of it does not change anything — wire the plugin into that config file exactly as normal.

Out of scope: Next.js and Turbopack specifically. Unlike the meta-frameworks above, Next.js does not expose a plain webpack/Turbopack config surface the plugin can hook into — it has no Next.js or Turbopack integration at all. For those, use the datadog-ci sourcemaps upload CLI in a postbuild script instead — do not attempt to thread the webpack plugin through next.config.js.

If a project uses some other meta-framework not listed here and Step 1 finds no plain bundler config file to edit, stop and ask rather than guessing whether it's supported.

Step 1: Detect the bundler

Search for a bundler config file:

find . -maxdepth 1 \( -name "vite.config.*" -o -name "rollup.config.*" -o -name "webpack.config.*" -o -name "rspack.config.*" -o -name "esbuild.config.*" \) 2>/dev/null
grep -l -E "\"(vite|rollup|webpack|@rspack/core|esbuild)\"" package.json

Use find, not ls with these glob patterns directly — in zsh, an ls invocation with multiple glob patterns aborts with no matches found the moment any one pattern fails to match, even with 2>/dev/null appended, because the failure happens during shell word-expansion before ls ever runs. find does its own pattern matching internally, so it works identically in bash and zsh and correctly returns nothing (not an error) when no bundler config exists.

Map the result:

Supported bundler versions:

Stop and ask the user if: no bundler config is found, more than one is found (monorepo — ask which app to instrument), Next.js or Turbopack is detected (out of scope, see above), or the bundler version is outside the supported range.

Step 2: Collect the three required values

The plugin will not build without these three. Read them from the repo; ask the user for anything you cannot read.

service — must equal the service passed to datadogRum.init(). Datadog matches uploaded sourcemaps to incoming errors on this value. A mismatch means the sourcemaps upload successfully and are never used.

grep -rn "datadogRum.init" --include="*.ts" --include="*.tsx" --include="*.js" --include="*.jsx" -A 15

If the grep finds no datadogRum.init() call anywhere, stop: this skill only adds sourcemap upload to an existing RUM setup, it does not instrument RUM itself. Tell the user Browser RUM needs to be set up first, then re-run this skill.

If datadogRum.init() has no service, stop and tell the user: sourcemaps cannot be matched without it, and it must be added to the RUM init first.

releaseVersion — must equal the version passed to datadogRum.init(). Typically a git commit SHA, release tag, or CI build ID. Can be set here, or once at the top level as metadata.version. If both are set and differ, the build fails with sourcemaps.releaseVersion must match metadata.version when both are configured.

minifiedPathPrefix — the URL prefix the built JS is served from. Must be a full URL or start with /, otherwise the build fails with sourcemaps.minifiedPathPrefix must be a valid URL or start with '/'.

Worked example: if dist/main.js is served at https://example.com/static/main.js, then minifiedPathPrefix is https://example.com/static/ or /static/. If JS is served from the server root, / is valid.

This is the field most often wrong, and it cannot be derived from the bundler config alone. Before asking the user, check the repo for how it actually deploys:

1. Check the bundler's own base/publicPath/baseURL config first — if set, that already answers the question.
2. Otherwise check deploy/CI config for the actual deploy command and target directory: .github/workflows/*.yml, .gitlab-ci.yml, vercel.json, netlify.toml, wrangler.toml, Dockerfile. If the deploy step ships the bundler's output directory verbatim (e.g. pages deploy ./dist, netlify deploy --dir=build), the prefix is the bundler's default asset subdirectory relative to that root — Vite's default is /assets/, Create React App's is /static/js/, etc.
3. Check for path-rewrite config that could override the answer from step 2 above: Cloudflare _routes.json / _redirects, Netlify _redirects, Vercel rewrites in vercel.json. If any exist, re-derive the prefix from the rewrite rule instead of the raw build output path.
4. If none of the above resolves it — no committed deploy config, a custom domain/CDN configured only in a hosting dashboard — stop and ask the user. Give them a concrete way to check rather than just asking blind: open browser devtools on the live site, go to the Network tab, reload, and find the URL the main JS bundle actually loads from.

Do not write a placeholder, a TODO, or a guessed hostname even after checking all of the above.

Step 3: Install the plugin

npm install --save-dev @datadog/<bundler>-plugin

Use the project's package manager: yarn add -D, pnpm add -D, or bun add -d.

Step 4: Make the bundler emit sourcemaps

This is the most common silent failure. The plugin uploads whatever .map files the build produces. If the bundler is not configured to emit them it finds nothing, logs only a No sourcemaps to upload warning, and the build still succeeds. Nothing appears in Datadog and there is no error to explain why.

These are bundler-native settings, not plugin options. The Datadog build plugin does not set them and does not document them.

Add the setting if it is missing. If the project deliberately disables sourcemaps in production, stop and raise it with the user — hidden sourcemaps served publicly is a real concern, and the plugin uploads then deletes nothing, so the .map files still ship unless the deploy strips them.

Step 5: Wire the plugin into the config

Register the plugin first in the plugins array — the plugin's own README recommends this across all five bundlers for complete build reporting.

Do not put the API key in the config file. The plugin reads DATADOG_API_KEY (or DD_API_KEY) from the environment, and the environment takes precedence over the config value. Leaving it out keeps credentials out of version control.

Vite (vite.config.js):

import { defineConfig } from 'vite';
import { datadogVitePlugin } from '@datadog/vite-plugin';

export default defineConfig({
  build: { sourcemap: true },
  plugins: [
    datadogVitePlugin({
      errorTracking: {
        sourcemaps: {
          service: 'my-service',
          releaseVersion: process.env.GIT_COMMIT_SHA,
          minifiedPathPrefix: '/static/',
        },
      },
    }),
  ],
});

webpack (webpack.config.js):

const { datadogWebpackPlugin } = require('@datadog/webpack-plugin');

module.exports = {
  devtool: 'source-map',
  plugins: [
    datadogWebpackPlugin({
      errorTracking: {
        sourcemaps: {
          service: 'my-service',
          releaseVersion: process.env.GIT_COMMIT_SHA,
          minifiedPathPrefix: '/static/',
        },
      },
    }),
  ],
};

Rspack (rspack.config.js) — same as webpack, with datadogRspackPlugin from @datadog/rspack-plugin.

Rollup (rollup.config.js):

import { datadogRollupPlugin } from '@datadog/rollup-plugin';

export default {
  output: { sourcemap: true },
  plugins: [
    datadogRollupPlugin({
      errorTracking: {
        sourcemaps: {
          service: 'my-service',
          releaseVersion: process.env.GIT_COMMIT_SHA,
          minifiedPathPrefix: '/static/',
        },
      },
    }),
  ],
};

esbuild (build script):

const { datadogEsbuildPlugin } = require('@datadog/esbuild-plugin');

require('esbuild').build({
  sourcemap: true,
  plugins: [
    datadogEsbuildPlugin({
      errorTracking: {
        sourcemaps: {
          service: 'my-service',
          releaseVersion: process.env.GIT_COMMIT_SHA,
          minifiedPathPrefix: '/static/',
        },
      },
    }),
  ],
});

Replace every value with the ones collected in step 2. Do not leave 'my-service' or '/static/' in place.

Optional sub-options, only if the user asks:

Step 6: Set up credentials in the build environment

The upload needs an API key. No application key is required.

Set these as CI/build secrets. Never write the key to a committed file.

Check the repo for what actually executes the build command (the build script) before asking — that is where the secret needs to be injected, which is not always the same as the eventual hosting target. A GitHub Actions workflow can run the build and then deploy the output to Cloudflare Pages/Netlify/Vercel/S3 as a separate step; in that case the secret goes on the workflow, not the host.

Confirm the detected provider with the user rather than assuming — a repo can have leftover config from a provider it no longer uses. If nothing matches, stop and ask where the build runs.

Step 7: Verify

Git metadata is attached automatically. enableGit is a top-level option that defaults to true, so there is nothing to switch on — only something to avoid breaking. Do not set it unless step 7 turns up the specific error below.

Do not rely on dryRun: true to test safely. It is documented to "do everything except the upload," but this is not trustworthy — at least one real published plugin version ignores the flag entirely and makes the live, authenticated upload anyway. Treat dryRun as unverified for safety purposes; it may or may not actually skip the network call in whatever version is installed.

The only way to test discovery that is actually guaranteed not to upload anything: make sure DATADOG_API_KEY/DD_API_KEY are not set anywhere in the environment the build runs in — check for this explicitly, a key left over from unrelated local tooling (e.g. a personal datadog-ci setup) counts and will be picked up silently. With no key reachable, the plugin cannot authenticate no matter what dryRun does. Then run a normal production build (no dryRun needed):

• If it logs No sourcemaps to upload, step 4 is not correct — the plugin found no .map files. This check happens locally before any network call, regardless of credentials.
• If it does not log that — you may see git-metadata warnings, then the build fails with No authentication token provided — that confirms steps 4 and 5 are correct. The plugin found the sourcemaps; it only stopped because no key was reachable, which is the expected, safe outcome when none is set.

Only move on to testing the real upload path once that passes, and only deliberately — this is a live action, not a verification step to run casually. Confirm with the user, explicitly, which key will be used:

• If they want to verify the real upload path locally, they need their own valid DATADOG_API_KEY (and DATADOG_SITE if not US1) exported in the shell for this test.
• If a key is already set in their shell for unrelated tooling, that key gets used here too — confirm that's actually intended before proceeding, since it uploads to whatever org that key belongs to, not a sandboxed or CI-only destination, and it does so immediately once present.

If the build fails with Error: No git remotes available: the build environment has no git remote, which is common in shallow CI clones and container builds. Two options, in order of preference: make the git remote available in the build (better — keeps the error-to-source linking), or set enableGit: false at the top level of the plugin config to disable git collection entirely.

datadogWebpackPlugin({
  enableGit: false,
  errorTracking: { sourcemaps: { /* ... */ } },
})

Confirm end to end: trigger an error in the deployed app and check that the stack trace in Datadog Error Tracking is un-minified.

Common mistakes

• Leaving service or releaseVersion different from the values in datadogRum.init(). The upload succeeds and the sourcemaps are never matched to any error. This is silent.
• Forgetting the bundler sourcemap setting in step 4. The build passes with only a warning.
• Guessing minifiedPathPrefix from the output directory instead of the served URL. dist/ is not a URL prefix.
• Putting apiKey in the committed config file instead of the build environment.
• Setting enableGit: true because a ticket said to "enable git". It is already the default; setting it changes nothing.
• Setting both releaseVersion and metadata.version to different values, which fails the build.
• Trying to use the build plugin on Next.js. It has no Next.js integration.

Verification checklist

• Bundler detected, version in the supported range
• Plugin package installed as a dev dependency
• Bundler configured to emit sourcemaps (step 4 table)
• Plugin registered first in the plugins array
• service matches datadogRum.init()'s service
• releaseVersion matches datadogRum.init()'s version
• minifiedPathPrefix is a full URL or starts with /, and matches where JS is served
• No API key in any committed file
• DATADOG_API_KEY (and DATADOG_SITE if not US1) set in the build environment
• Build with no API key reachable reports sourcemaps found (reaches No authentication token provided), not No sourcemaps to upload — do not use dryRun for this check, see step 7
• Real build completes and a deployed error shows an un-minified stack trace