Multiple Domains Setup

Birdie automatically captures console logs when a user records an issue.

Before you begin - activation required Multiple domain support is not enabled by default. You must contact the Birdie team to have it enabled for your workspace before following this guide. Your setup will not work until this is done. Contact us

How it works The snippet is dormant until a recording starts. When triggered, the recorder needs to communicate with the snippets across different domains… However browser-native communication channels won't work cross-origin, so instead both sides connect to a shared WebSocket channel. The channel is keyed on the authenticated user's email, which means the snippet must be initialized with that email so both ends subscribe to the same channel. That's why step 3 is required here, unlike the single-domain setup.

Setup overview

To capture console logs, you need to:

1. Install the Birdie snippet on your app

2. Whitelist Birdie in your Content Security Policies

3. Identify your users with an email

1. Install the Birdie snippet

You can choose between 2 options:

Option A: Frontend Integration using NPM

npm install @birdie-so/snippet
# or
yarn add @birdie-so/snippet

Use with React / Vue / Angular / JS

You must get your own clientId, get it from your Birdie Settings → Logs section.

import { initBirdie } from "@birdie-so/snippet";

initBirdie({
  clientId: "YOUR_CLIENT_ID", // *** required ***
  contact: { // *** required to get logs *** 
    email: "[e-mail]", // *** required to get logs *** 
    name: "Alexander", // optional
    id: 65523 // optional
  },

  // Optional metadata available to recordings
  metadata: {
    any: {
      key: "123",
      product_id: "EBF-233"
    },
  },

  // Optional hook once Birdie is ready
  onReady(birdie) {
    birdie.on("start", (data) => {
      console.log("Recording started", data);
      birdie.metadata = { dynamicKey: "value" };
    });

    birdie.on("stop", (data) => {
      console.log("Recording stopped", data);
    });
    
    // if you need to update the contact email after initialization:
    birdie.update({ contact: { email: "[e-mail]" } })

    // or update your metadata:
    birdie.update({ metadata: { status: { id: "123", label: "active", color: "#000000" } } })
    
  },
});

👉 You will find some more infos about implementation in this page.

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Option B: Manual installation

We do not recommend installing Birdie through Google Tag Manager or Segment. The preferred method is to paste the code directly onto your web application, as this will result in faster load times.

1. Go to Settings → Logs

2. Click on Send to developer, or Copy the snippet code and paste it in the <head> section of your web app. Note that the snippet is unique to your organization.

How to add custom medatada

Optionally add your own metadata if you need to store additional data along the recordings like this:

// 1st method: add this before loading the snippet
window.birdieSettings = {
    contact_email: "[e-mail]",
    metadata: {
        mykey: "value",
        otherkey: [
            { x: 12, y: 13 },
            { opacity: 35, width: 440 }
        ]
    }
}

// 2nd method, add metadata after loading the snippet: 
if (window.birdie) {
    window.birdie.metadata = {
        mykey: "value",
        otherkey: [
            { x: 12, y: 13 },
            { opacity: 35, width: 440 }
        ]
    }
}

💡 Note that if you have several tabs open with the snippet loaded, only the latest metadata that was set will be available along a recording.

How to hook into recorder events

Optionally you can register for events to know when a recording has started and stopped. First make sure window.birdie object is present by registering for onBirdieReady event before loading the snippet, then register for "start" and "stop" events like this:

window.birdieReadyCallback = function() {
  console.log("Birdie Ready, window.birdie object is now available")
  window.birdie.on('start', function(data) {
    console.log("A recording was started", data);
    // save custom data, or add metadata
    window.birdie.metadata = { key: "value" }
  });
  window.birdie.on('stop', function(data) {
    console.log("A recording was stopped", data);
  });
}
  
window.birdieSettings={
  onBirdieReady: birdieReadyCallback
}

// then add the snippet…

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2. Whitelist Birdie in your Content Security Policy

To ensure proper functionality, whitelist the following:

• HTTPS: https://*.birdie.so

• Secure WebSocket protocol: wss://*.birdie.so

• Port: 443, 3478 (TCP and UDP)

• IP Address: 18.189.92.93 and 3.20.198.186

Popup communication compatibility

Some Birdie flows require the Recorder opened in a new window to communicate with the window that opened it.

If your page sends the following header:

Cross-Origin-Opener-Policy: noopener-allow-popups

then the opened page may not have access to window.opener, and popup-to-opener communication may not work.

Make sure your opened page does not isolate itself from its opener in a way that disables window.opener.

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3. Identify your customer with an email - required

Capturing logs with the Birdie Screen Recorder for a given user requires that the same user email be used both in the recorder and in your snippet.

How the multiple-domains recording works under the hood?

The diagram below shows what happens technically when a recording starts across multiple domains - in particular why your customer's email must be passed to the snippet at init time, so the recorder can remotely trigger log collection on the right pages.

The setup depends on how you installed the snippet:

If you installed with NPM

Set the contact: { email: ""} value, or update it as soon as you have it. See full example above:

onReady(birdie) {
    birdie.update({ contact: { email: "[e-mail]" } })
    ...

If you installed manually

Add contact_email info in your window.birdieSettings . See example above:

window.birdieSettings = {
    contact_email: "[e-mail]",
    ...

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Tip: when a snippet is loaded into your app, a cookie named __birdie_snippet_status is maintained as long as the snippet is loaded, and expires 60s after the snippet is unloaded. If you need to detect the presence of the snippet in one of your pages you can test the presence of this cookie.

If you need help or have a question, contact us at [e-mail]