Use newrelic in nuxt - node.js

Question

I am trying to add newrelic agent to my nuxt application. I have installed the needed package and added my license key and set an application name in newrelic.js configuration file:
npm i newrelic
cp node_modules/newrelic/newrelic.js .
nano newrelic.js
My problem is that I also need to require this configuration file at the top of my server.js file and since this file is dynamically created and placed under the .nuxt folder I have no idea how to do this.
In a standard nodejs application I would simply add the require('newrelic'); to the top of my startup script or perhaps add a new script entry in package.json looking something like this:
"scripts": {
"dev": "node -r newrelic.js app.js"
}

Answer 1

I ended up using express to solve this:
npm i express
touch server/index.js
We will now load newrelic in the server/index.js file and after that create our nuxt instance:
require('newrelic');
const express = require('express');
const consola = require('consola');
const { Nuxt, Builder } = require('nuxt');
const app = express();
// Import and Set Nuxt.js options
const config = require('../nuxt.config.js');
config.dev = process.env.NODE_ENV !== 'production';
async function start () {
// Init Nuxt.js
const nuxt = new Nuxt(config);
const { host, port } = nuxt.options.server;
// Build only in dev mode
if (config.dev) {
const builder = new Builder(nuxt);
await builder.build();
} else {
await nuxt.ready();
}
// Give nuxt middleware to express
app.use(nuxt.render);
// Listen the server
app.listen(port, host);
consola.ready({
message: `Server listening on http://${host}:${port}`,
badge: true
});
}
start();
I also updated the script section in my package.json:
"scripts": {
"dev": "cross-env NODE_ENV=development nodemon server/index.js --watch server",
"build": "nuxt build",
"start": "cross-env NODE_ENV=production node server/index.js"
}
Hope this can help anyone who faces the same kind of problem.

Answer 2

For anyone struggling with this I found a much simpler solution by using Nuxt modules and hooks.
Create a new file modules/newRelic.js with the following content:
module.exports = function () {
this.nuxt.hook("listen", () => {
require("newrelic");
});
};
Import the module in nuxt.config.js
modules: [
"~/modules/newRelic.js"
]
Don't forget to install newrelic (npm i newrelic) and paste newrelic.js into the applications root folder.

Answer 3

In Node.js, you can require a module with the -r [module] syntax (see Node.js docs) before your actual script starts up.
For Nuxt, alter your npm run scripts like this (instead nuxt start):
node -r newrelic node_modules/nuxt/bin/nuxt.js start
This way, Node loads NewRelic first, then Nuxt, and ensures NewRelic is able to instrument all dependencies. If you let Nuxt bootup first, NewRelic is not aware of some dependencies, e.g. express.
This is recommended by NewRelic, see their docs.