Helpers Overview

Use helper functions to add breadcrumbs, spans, and manual exception captures.

DEX ships with a small set of helper functions (loaded via helper('dex')) that let you add extra context to requests with minimal effort.

The helpers are intentionally defensive: if DEX is disabled or unavailable, they silently do nothing so they never break your app.

What helpers are for

Use helpers when you want to:

Add breadcrumbs while handling something “interesting”
Time a block of work with spans
Report a caught exception (so it still shows up as an issue)

Next steps

Capturing Exceptions — dex_capture_exception()
Breadcrumbs — dex_breadcrumb()
Spans — dex_span_start(), dex_span_finish(), dex_span()
Helper Reference — Quick signatures and behavior notes