Error Grouping

Understand how Checkend groups similar errors together.

Automatic Fingerprinting

By default, Checkend generates a fingerprint for each error based on:

The error class name (e.g., NoMethodError)
The first line of the backtrace from your application code

This means errors with the same class occurring at the same location are grouped into a single "problem."

Custom Fingerprints

Sometimes you may want to group errors differently. You can provide a custom fingerprint when sending errors:

Custom fingerprint example

curl -X POST https://your-checkend-instance.com/ingest/v1/errors \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Checkend-Ingestion-Key: your-ingestion-key" \
  -d '{
    "error_class": "PaymentError",
    "error_message": "Card declined: insufficient funds",
    "fingerprint": "payment-declined-insufficient-funds"
  }'

All errors with the same custom fingerprint will be grouped together, regardless of their class or backtrace.

Use Cases for Custom Fingerprints

Group by error type
Group all payment failures together regardless of the specific reason.
Group by feature
Group all errors from a specific feature like "checkout" or "user-registration".
Separate environments
Include environment in the fingerprint to separate staging from production errors.

Problems vs Notices

In Checkend terminology:

Notice — A single error occurrence
Problem — A group of similar notices (based on fingerprint)

When you resolve a problem, you're marking all related notices as resolved. If a new notice comes in with the same fingerprint, the problem will be reopened.