ViThor HTTP Tracing

A small package for tracing HTTP requests between dotnet microservices.

Sample of the log:

info: Vithor.Filters.LoggingFilter[0]
      [ced6398d-36a2-4f0c-80c2-c78e91274d0d] Request from [Username/Anonymous] to Controller/Action with query parameters: [] and arguments: {
        "id": 5
      }
info: Vithor.Filters.LoggingFilter[0]
      [ced6398d-36a2-4f0c-80c2-c78e91274d0d] Response from [Username/Anonymous] to Controller/Action with result: {
        "id": 5,
        "name": "Test",
        "isComplete": true
      }

[ced6398d-36a2-4f0c-80c2-c78e91274d0d] is a tracking code that can be received in the header with the term X-Correlation-ID.

If an X-Correlation-ID is not received in the HTTP header, this library will generate a random value to pass along to other services (if needed) and track the response with the same ID.

Installation

Install the package from NuGet:

dotnet add package ViThor.HttpTracing

Usage

Update line builder.Services.AddControllers(); in Program.cs to:

builder.Services.AddControllers(options =>
{
    options.Filters.Add<ViThorTraceFilter>();
});

Add reference to ViThorTraceFilter:

using Vithor.HttpTracing.Filters;

The above filter will retrieve the TraceID , log the request and the response.

If your API has to pass the TraceID to another service, you also need to add the following line in Program.cs:

builder.Services.AddHttpContextAccessor();
builder.Services.AddHttpClient();

And, your controller needs to extend from ViThorControllerBase:

public class TodoController : ViThorControllerBase
{
    public TodoController(IHttpContextAccessor httpContextAccessor, HttpClient httpClient) : base(httpContextAccessor, httpClient)
    {
    }
}

The ViThorControllerBase will retrieve the X-Correlation-ID and set it in the header of your HttpClient instance.

The CorrelationId property of ViThorControllerBase contains the value of X-Correlation-ID, and can be used to log the TraceID value in any point of your code.

Add Exception Handling Middleware for return the TraceID in the body of the response (optional)

Add the following line in Program.cs:

app.UseMiddleware<ViThorExceptionHandlingMiddleware>();

Sample

Running the sample

dotnet run --project Samples/ViThor.HttpTracing.Sample.AppOne/ViThor.HttpTracing.Sample.AppOne.csproj
dotnet run --project Samples/ViThor.HttpTracing.Sample.AppTwo/ViThor.HttpTracing.Sample.AppTwo.csproj

Testing the sample

Swagger

The sample project has Swagger configured. To access it, run the API and access the following URL:

http://localhost:5000/swagger/index.html

Curl

Request without passing the X-Correlation-ID:

curl --location --request GET 'http://localhost:5000/Todo'

Request passing the X-Correlation-ID:

curl --location --request GET 'http://localhost:5000/Todo' \
--header 'X-Correlation-ID: ced6398d-36a2-4f0c-80c2-c78e91274d0d'

You will be able to see, in the logs of both applications, the same identifier (Guid), as well as the content of the HTTP request and response.

Contributing

Pull requests are welcome. For major changes, please open an issue first to discuss what you would like to change.

License

MIT