What

Tipoff is an open source, flexible, private cloud or on-prem front-end monitoring platform that auto notifies the developers based on the preconfigured Tips it receives from the end-user browser.

It is created using the MERN stack. You can visit the complete stack here.

Why

Tipoff helps you identify and fix bugs faster. You get notified in realtime before your customers notify you.

It gives you the flexibility to keep the customer's data on your own servers with complete control over securing and processing the data however you want. You don't need to worry about any third-party entity prying your customer's sensitive information.

Demo

https://www.tipoff.dev

Deploy on Heroku

Run Tipoff locally

Clone Tipoff

git clone https://github.com/tanha-p/tipoff

Go to newly created Tipoff directory

cd tipoff

Install Tipoff API Server Dependencies

npm install

Configure environment variables

1. Create a new empty file and name it as .env and place it under tipoff directory
2. Copy everything from .env.default file and paste it in .env file
3. Set all the environment variable properties appropriately in .env file

NODE_ENV in local is typically development

MONGODB_URI is the connection url to your local mongoDB instance where Tipoff DB will be located

MONGODB_URI_TEST is the connection url for running tests. This URL must connect to a different DB than the one in MONGODB_URI since all data is cleaned up after tests are complete

TIPOFF_API_PORT is the port on which the Tipoff Server will serve the requests

JWT_SECRET_KEY can be any string and is used to encrypt the passwords before storing it in the DB

NOTIFIER_API_KEY_SENDGRID is used to send email notifications. Key can be generated using a free plan at https://sendgrid.com/pricing/

NOTIFIER_FROM_EMAIL_SENDGRID is from email address that is verified on SendGrid and can be used to send Tip email notifications

After populating all enviroment variables, your resultant file will look something like this

# node application environment development,testing,staging,production
NODE_ENV=development

# mongodb database url
MONGODB_URI=mongodb://localhost:27017/tipoff
# mongodb database url to be used when running tests
MONGODB_URI_TEST=mongodb://localhost:27017/test-tipoff

# port number at which app will listen
# this is not required when deploying on heroku. the app will default to process.env.PORT for heroku
TIPOFF_API_PORT=5000

# secret key used to sign and validate auth token
JWT_SECRET_KEY=mysecretkey

#SendGrid API key to notify of new tips via email
NOTIFIER_API_KEY_SENDGRID=mysendgridapikey
#SendGrid From email to use when sending out email notifications
NOTIFIER_FROM_EMAIL_SENDGRID=no-reply@myapp.com

Start Tipoff Server

npm start

Tipoff API server is ready to receive Tips @ the TIPOFF_API_PORT

Install and Run the Tipoff UI to View Tips

1. In a new terminal tab or window, go to the Tipoff directory
2. drill down into react-app directory

cd react-app

3. Install the react application dependencies

npm install

4. If your TIPOFF_API_PORT is different from 5000 then change it in the package.json of React App. If your port is 5000 then you can skip this step

Find the following line in tipoff/react-app/package.json

"proxy":  "http://localhost:5000"

and change it to

"proxy":  "http://localhost:<your_new_api_port>"

5. Start the react-app Within the react-app directory, run

npm start

You can now navigate to Tipoff UI at http://localhost:3000 or your own react-app port