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Integration guide
How ALIAS fits into your product and your systems. The user guide covers the panel; this guide covers the code.
How a product talks to ALIAS
- A product and a key. On the panel, an admin makes a product and issues a key for it (Products, Keys). The key ships in your build. It identifies the product, and isn't a secret: ALIAS limits what a copied one can do.
- An identity. The first time a user reports, the client asks the service for an identity, an id and a secret made by the service, and keeps it on the device. There's no account and nothing to sign in to.
- A report. Your product shows its own Report a problem screen. The client adds what your product knows (context fields, telemetry, a screenshot, files), applies the product's redaction rules on the device, and sends it.
- Answers. Support answers on the panel. The client hears of it over a stream, or on its next poll, and shows it where the user is. The user can reply on the same ticket.
The product's settings (its fields, redaction rules, attachment limits, contact and branding) come from the service, so changing them on the panel needs no new build.
What to use
| You want to | Use |
|---|---|
| a report screen in a web, Node, Electron, Godot, iOS or macOS product | a client library |
| reports from a product that can't send them itself | the standalone reporter |
| reports and remote assistance from a device with no app of its own | alias-agent (Remote assistance) |
| tickets in your issue tracker, chat or data warehouse | webhooks |
| the desk from scripts, CI or an AI agent | the command line or the admin API |
| another language, or your own client | the API reference, and spec/openapi.yaml on alias-releases |
| to tell your users what's kept | the privacy text |
The clients and tools are free, under the MIT licence, on alias-releases.
Pointing a client at ALIAS
A client needs two things: the service's address and the product's key. On the hosted service, the address is your workspace's. Self-hosted, it's your server's public_url. A browser product also needs its origin in the product's allowed origins, set on the panel.