Sentry Issue Investigation

This skill fetches comprehensive information about a Sentry issue using the Sentry MCP server.

When to Use

Use this skill when:

• •The user provides a Sentry issue URL (e.g., https://buildrtech.sentry.io/issues/6894266400/...)
• •You need to investigate an error or exception
• •You need to understand the context of a production error

Prerequisites

The Sentry MCP server must be configured. Add to your MCP configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "sentry": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "mcp-remote@latest", "https://mcp.sentry.dev/mcp"]
    }
  }
}

How to Fetch Sentry Issue Data

Primary Tool: get_sentry_issue

Use the mcp__sentry__get_sentry_issue tool to fetch issue details:

Parameters:

• •issue_id_or_url (string, required): The full Sentry issue URL or numeric issue ID
• •view (string, optional): "summary" or "detailed" (default: "detailed")
• •format (string, optional): "plain" or "markdown" (default: "markdown")

Example:

Tool: mcp__sentry__get_sentry_issue
Parameters:
  issue_id_or_url: "https://buildrtech.sentry.io/issues/6894266400/?environment=production"
  view: "detailed"
  format: "markdown"

The tool will return:

• •Issue title and ID
• •Status and severity level
• •First seen / last seen timestamps
• •Event count
• •Full stacktrace
• •Request/job context
• •User information
• •Tags and extra data

Additional Useful Tools

list_issue_events

List all events for a specific issue:

Tool: mcp__sentry__list_issue_events
Parameters:
  organization_slug: "buildrtech"
  issue_id: "6894266400"
  view: "detailed"

get_sentry_event

Get a specific event from an issue:

Tool: mcp__sentry__get_sentry_event
Parameters:
  issue_id_or_url: "https://buildrtech.sentry.io/issues/6894266400/"
  event_id: "abc123def456"
  view: "detailed"

resolve_short_id

Look up an issue by its short ID (e.g., PROJECT-123):

Tool: mcp__sentry__resolve_short_id
Parameters:
  organization_slug: "buildrtech"
  short_id: "BUILDR-12345"

Parsing Sentry URLs

Sentry URLs contain useful information:

https://{org}.sentry.io/issues/{issue_id}/?environment={env}&project={project_id}

Components:

• •Organization slug: The subdomain (e.g., buildrtech)
• •Issue ID: The numeric ID in the path (e.g., 6894266400)
• •Project ID: From the project query parameter
• •Environment: From the environment query parameter

You can pass the entire URL directly to get_sentry_issue - no parsing required.

Information to Extract and Present

When presenting Sentry issue information, include:

Error Summary

• •Title: The error message/type
• •Culprit: The file/method where the error occurred
• •Level: Error severity (error, warning, info)
• •First Seen: When the error first occurred
• •Last Seen: Most recent occurrence
• •Count: Total number of occurrences

Stack Trace

Present the stack trace with:

• •File path and line number
• •Function/method name
• •Code context (surrounding lines)
• •Highlight application code vs library code

Example formatting:

app/services/foo_service.rb:42 in `process_data`
  40 |     data.each do |item|
  41 |       result = transform(item)
> 42 |       save_result(result)  # <-- Error occurred here
  43 |     end
  44 |   end

Request Context (for web errors)

• •Request URL and HTTP method
• •Request headers (relevant ones)
• •Request parameters/body
• •Session information

Job Context (for background jobs)

• •Job class name
• •Queue name
• •Job arguments
• •Job ID

User Context

• •User ID
• •Email
• •Username or other identifiers

Tags and Additional Context

• •Environment (production, staging, etc.)
• •Release version
• •Browser/OS information
• •Custom tags

Example Output Format

## Sentry Issue: NoMethodError - undefined method `name` for nil:NilClass

**Issue ID**: 6894266400
**Environment**: production
**Level**: error
**First Seen**: 2025-01-15 14:32:00 UTC
**Last Seen**: 2025-01-16 09:15:00 UTC
**Occurrences**: 47

### Error
**Type**: NoMethodError
**Message**: undefined method `name` for nil:NilClass
**Culprit**: app/services/user_service.rb in get_display_name

### Stack Trace (most recent call last)

app/services/user_service.rb:28 in `get_display_name`
  26 |   def get_display_name(user_id)
  27 |     user = User.find_by(id: user_id)
> 28 |     user.name  # user is nil here
  29 |   end

app/controllers/users_controller.rb:15 in `show`
  13 |   def show
  14 |     @user_id = params[:id]
> 15 |     @display_name = UserService.get_display_name(@user_id)
  16 |   end

### Request Context
- **URL**: GET /users/12345
- **IP**: 192.168.1.100
- **User Agent**: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7)

### User Context
- **User ID**: 98765
- **Email**: user@example.com

### Tags
- release: v2.3.1
- server_name: web-prod-01
- transaction: UsersController#show

Troubleshooting

MCP Server Not Available

If the Sentry MCP tools are not available, fall back to the API approach:

# Requires SENTRY_AUTH_TOKEN environment variable
curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $SENTRY_AUTH_TOKEN" \
  "https://sentry.io/api/0/issues/{issue_id}/" | jq '.'

curl -s -H "Authorization: Bearer $SENTRY_AUTH_TOKEN" \
  "https://sentry.io/api/0/issues/{issue_id}/events/latest/" | jq '.'

Common Errors

• •401 Unauthorized: Token is invalid or missing required scopes
• •404 Not Found: Issue ID doesn't exist or user lacks access
• •429 Rate Limited: Too many requests, wait and retry