Send no telemetry from CI or when DO_NOT_TRACK is set

How to do it

Whether telemetry may start at all follows Send usage data only after the user says yes. A command-line tool needs more, because it runs unattended. GitHub Actions sets CI to true on every run, and other CI services set it too. DO_NOT_TRACK is a variable many command-line tools share, so one setting silences them all. List every field you send in the docs. Offer example telemetry status and a flag that prints the payload instead of sending it. Send in the background with a 1 second time limit, and drop the data on any error, so telemetry never slows or fails a command.

Examples

JavaScript example

function telemetryAllowed(env = process.env, settings) {
  if (env.DO_NOT_TRACK === '1' || env.EXAMPLE_TELEMETRY === '0' || env.CI) return false
  return settings.telemetry === 'on'
}

Python example

import os

def telemetry_allowed(settings, env=os.environ) -> bool:
    if env.get("DO_NOT_TRACK") == "1" or env.get("EXAMPLE_TELEMETRY") == "0" or env.get("CI"):
        return False
    return settings.get("telemetry") == "on"

How to check

A test runs a command three times, once with each variable set. A network capture shows no request to the telemetry host. Without them, the first run prints the notice to standard error before any request. With the telemetry host unreachable, the command's run time grows by less than 1 second and its exit code is unchanged.

Sources

• GitHub Docs, default environment variables

Related rules

• DSK-42 Send usage data only after the user says yes in Desktop apps and extensions