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Starter Kits

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What Is a Starter Kit?

A starter kit is a collection of YAML files—connection.yaml and playbook.yaml—that work together to send events from a customer’s source (e.g., a website or mobile app) to a downstream vendor (e.g., a marketing, analytics, or advertising platform). The starter kit concept is foundational to how MetaRouter handles data because it ensures your events go to the correct destination in the format each vendor expects, with the proper authentication and transformation logic.

Why Use Starter Kits?

  • Modular and Reusable: Each starter kit is vendor-specific but can be tailored to new use cases or data flows without rewriting everything from scratch.
  • Security: Credentials and sensitive parameters stay out of plain sight in public files, reducing the risk of leaking private information.
  • Flexibility: You can rename events, filter out unneeded data, and batch your events to align with vendor-specific requirements.
  • Scalability: Easily add or update multiple vendor endpoints by creating new starter kits; you’re not locked into a single configuration.

Components of a Starter Kit

  1. Connection.yaml
    • Purpose: Determines where an event goes and how it’s accepted by the target vendor. Think of this file as the “shipping label.”
    • Key Responsibilities:
      • API Endpoint: Specifies where to send events (often multiple endpoints per vendor).
      • Authentication: Passes any private credentials (username, password, token) required by the vendor.
      • Headers: Tells the vendor endpoint what format (e.g., JSON) is being sent.
      • Batch Rules: Defines whether events are sent one by one or in bundles.
  2. Playbook.yaml
    • Purpose: Defines how to reshape, enrich, or filter events before sending them downstream. Think of it as the “recipe” that converts your raw event into the exact format the vendor needs.
    • Key Responsibilities:
      • Renaming Fields: For instance, changing product_viewed to ViewContent.
      • Dropping Sensitive Data: Removing personally identifiable information you don’t want to share.
      • Enriching Events: Adding fields like user IDs from other sources.
      • Event-Specific Logic: Applying unique rules to specific events (e.g., “purchase” vs. “page_viewed”).

Webhooks

If a required starter kit is not available in the Starter Kit library, you can request it by contacting your MetaRouter CSM. Alternatively, you can build your own starter kit using Webhooks. For more details, see this guide.

Best Practices

  • Default values in the starter kit are provided as examples. We strongly recommend customizing all values based on your specific use case and vendor requirements.
  • After setting up the starter kit, it’s recommended to validate the integration using the CLI tools listed below:
  • In addition, confirm that event data is properly received and interpreted within the vendor platform. Validation with your vendor CSM is also highly recommended.
  • If you're deprecating a vendor pixel, we recommend testing your new server-side integration on a staging account whenever possible. If a staging environment is not available, contact your vendor CSM to discuss a migration plan.

Available Starter Kits

Updated 5 days ago

What’s Next

Use the navigation panel on the left to explore our Starter Kits.