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A DSN (Data Source Name) is the connection string that tells your Argus SDK where to send events. Every project gets a unique DSN at creation time — paste it into your init() call once, and Argus handles the rest. Without a valid DSN, the SDK silently no-ops instead of crashing your app, but you won’t receive any error data, so getting this value right from the start matters.

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DSN format

Every Argus DSN follows this structure:
ComponentDescription
PUBLIC_KEYThe URL username — the portion of the DSN before the @. It identifies your SDK to the ingest endpoint. It is not a secret — safe to include in frontend code, commit to source control, or embed in build pipelines.
your-domain.comThe host where your Argus instance is running.
PROJECT_IDThe unique identifier for your project. The ingest route is scoped to this ID, so events land in exactly the right project.

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Finding your DSN

1

Log into the Argus dashboard

Navigate to your Argus instance and sign in with your account credentials.
2

Open your project

Select an existing project from the Projects Console. If you haven’t created one yet, click New Project — your DSN is displayed immediately on the onboarding screen once the project is created.
3

Copy the DSN from Settings

Inside the project, go to Settings. Find the Client key (DSN) section and click Copy next to the DSN string.

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Using your DSN in code

Pass the DSN as the dsn property of the options object you hand to init(). Call init() once, as early as possible in your application’s startup sequence — before any code that could throw.

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DSN validation

Argus validates the DSN synchronously inside init() and throws an error immediately if anything is wrong. Conditions that cause a throw:
  • The string is not a valid URL
  • The public key (the part before @) is missing
  • The project ID (the URL path) is missing
  • The protocol is anything other than http or https
This behaviour is intentional. A bad DSN is a misconfiguration, and you want to catch it at deploy time — not silently lose production error data for days.

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Security note

The DSN public key grants write-only access to a single project’s ingest endpoint. It cannot read issues, query data, or access any other part of your account. Bundle it freely in client-side code, commit it to your repository, and include it in your build pipeline without concern.
Each project has its own unique DSN. Using the wrong DSN sends your events to the wrong project — they won’t appear where you expect them. Always verify the DSN matches the project you intend to monitor.