Track changes using the CLI

The change tracking feature is a good way to monitor the effects of specific changes on your customers and systems. You do this by designating which changes you want to monitor and then viewing the results in the New Relic UI.

While you can designate which changes you want to monitor by using GraphQL or a CI/CD integration, you can also use our CLI to do the same thing. If you use the CLI to designate the changes you want to monitor, you can run either a GraphQL query or execute an NRQL query against the New Relic database to retrieve a list of those changes.

Here's a two-minute overview video, or you can jump right to the steps below.

Install the CLI

We have a new version of the CLI that enables you to send GraphQL mutations to create markers. Even if you've been using the CLI, you'll need to upgrade it to take advantage of this feature.

Follow the steps here to install or upgrade the CLI.

Make a change marker with the CLI

The CLI has a range of options (shown below), but the create command marks a specific change for a given New Relic entity.

This is the syntax to create a marker:

newrelic entity deployment create [flags]

Here's an example:

newrelic entity deployment create --guid INSERT_YOUR_GUID_HERE --version <1.0.0>

Primary (parent) options

-h, --help                    help for create
-g, --guid string             the entity GUID to create change tracker
-v, --version string          the tag names to add to the entity
    --changelog string        a URL for the changelog or list of changes if not linkable
    --commit string           the commit identifier, for example, a Git commit SHA
    --deepLink string         a link back to the system generating the deployment
    --deploymentType string   type of deployment, one of BASIC, BLUE_GREEN, CANARY, OTHER, ROLLING or SHADOW
    --description string      a description of the deployment
    --groupId string          string that can be used to correlate two or more events
-t  --timestamp int64         the start time of the deployment, the number of milliseconds since the Unix epoch, defaults to now
-u  --user string             username of the deployer or bot

Options inherited from parent commands

-a, --accountId int    the account ID to use. Can be overridden by setting NEW_RELIC_ACCOUNT_ID
    --debug            debug level logging
    --format string    output text format [JSON, Text, YAML] (default "JSON")
    --plain            output compact text
    --profile string   the authentication profile to use
    --trace            trace level logging

What's next

After you've used the CLI to designate the changes you want to track, you can analyze the effect of those changes in the New Relic UI:

• Query your changes: You can write your own GraphQL or NRQL queries to see details about changes you're tracking. For details, see Query change data.
• Use our curated charts: For details, see How to view and analyze your changes in New Relic.