Manual moment — business funnels + abandonment

Manual moment

A moment is a span with funnel semantics. Use it when you want to track a multi-step user flow (“signup”, “checkout”, “first-time onboarding”) and see in the dashboard:

• How many users started the flow vs completed.
• How long each step took.
• Where users abandoned mid-flow.

Spans (from startSpan) measure code execution time; moments measure user intent across multiple steps.

import { startMoment } from '@goliapkg/sentori-react-native'

const m = startMoment('signup', { plan: 'pro', source: 'landing-cta' })

// later:
m.checkpoint('email-confirmed')
// later again:
m.checkpoint('first-app-opened')
// happy path:
m.end()

Each startMoment call opens a span tagged op = 'sentori.moment' with moment.name = 'signup' and your { plan, source } props as moment.prop.* tags. The dashboard indexes on moment.name so all signups land on one funnel view.

Checkpoint pattern

Most flows have intermediate steps you want timestamped. m.checkpoint(label) records a step without ending the moment:

const m = startMoment('checkout', { sku })

m.checkpoint('cart-validated')
await chargePayment()

m.checkpoint('payment-succeeded')
await shipNotification()

m.checkpoint('email-sent')
m.end()

The dashboard renders a step-by-step timeline of each moment with deltas between checkpoints.

Abandonment — the unique part

const m = startMoment('checkout', { sku })

window.addEventListener('beforeunload', () => {
  if (m.status === 'open') m.abandon('navigation-away')
})

router.on('cancel', () => m.abandon('explicit-cancel'))

abandon(reason?) marks the moment as abandoned and tags the span abandoned=true so the dashboard’s funnel view can break out by reason. This is the difference between a real funnel tool (Mixpanel / Amplitude — separate analytics pipeline) and a developer-shaped one (Sentori — one pipeline, one dashboard, traces ride along).

Failure path

const m = startMoment('checkout', { sku })

try {
  await chargePayment()
  m.end()
} catch (err) {
  m.fail(err.message)
  throw err
}

fail(reason) is shorthand for m.span.setStatus('error', reason) + m.span.end({ status: 'error' }). The dashboard renders it red on the funnel view.

What startMoment adds vs raw startSpan

Both open a span. The difference is dashboard rendering:

• A regular startSpan lands in Traces — engineering’s view.
• A moment lands additionally on the Moments / Funnels view — PM / growth / on-call’s view of “are users completing key flows”.

The conventional tags (op = 'sentori.moment', moment.name, moment.prop.*, abandoned=true|false) are what the funnel view filters on. You could replicate this with startSpan + manual tags, but startMoment is the one-line ergonomic shape.

Use the right tool

Tool	Signal	Dashboard module
captureException / captureMessage	”something broke”	Issues
startTrace + startSpan	engineering timing	Traces
startMoment	user flow completion / abandonment	Moments
track(name, props)	discrete analytics events (product.viewed, button.clicked)	Audience
recordMetric	numeric time-series	Metrics
addBreadcrumb	context attached to the next event	Issue Detail breadcrumbs

When in doubt: moment if it’s a flow with multiple steps + abandonment; track if it’s a single discrete event; span if it’s a unit of code execution.

Related

• Manual trace — startTrace for top-level workflow span.
• Manual span — startSpan / withScopedSpan for inner units.
• Track + metrics — discrete analytics + numeric data points.