Open-source data collection and tag management

walkerOS captures, structures, and routes events with built-in support for consent management — all directly in your code. No fragile UI configs. No black-box logic. Just tracking infrastructure you can version, test, and trust.

Why walkerOS?

• Independence: Make your data collection independent from single vendor specifications to reduce complexity and extra code whenever you add or remove a new service. Keep maintenance effort to a minimum.
• Scalability: DOM-based, component-level frontend tagging makes tracking user behavior declarative, reusable, and easy to maintain.
• Privacy-first approach: Built-in consent handling and privacy controls help you meet compliance from day one.
• Type-safe tracking: Built with TypeScript to catch tracking errors at compile time, not in production. Get IDE autocomplete for APIs and destination configs, prevent data structure mistakes.

How it works

Quick Start

npm

Install the required packages from npm:

npm install @walkeros/collector @walkeros/web-source-browser

Initialize walkerOS in your project:

import { startFlow } from '@walkeros/collector';
import { sourceBrowser } from '@walkeros/web-source-browser';

// Initialize walkerOS
export async function initializeWalker(): Promise<void> {
  const { collector, elb } = await startFlow({
    sources: {
      browser: {
        code: sourceBrowser,
        config: {
          settings: {
            pageview: true,
            session: true,
            elb: 'elb', // Makes elb available as window.elb
          },
        },
      },
    },
    destinations: {
      console: {
        code: {
          type: 'console',
          config: {},
          push: (event) => console.log('Event:', event),
        },
      },
    },
  });

  // Make collector available globally
  window.walker = collector;
}

script tag

For websites without build tools, you can install from a CDN:

<script type="module">
  import { startFlow } from 'https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@walkeros/collector/dist/index.mjs';
  import { sourceBrowser } from 'https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@walkeros/web-source-browser/dist/index.mjs';

  const { collector, elb } = await startFlow({
    sources: {
      browser: {
        code: sourceBrowser,
        config: {
          settings: {
            pageview: true,
            session: true,
            elb: 'elb',
          },
        },
      },
    },
    destinations: {
      console: {
        code: {
          type: 'console',
          config: {},
          push: (event) => console.log('Event:', event),
        },
      },
    },
  });

  window.walker = collector;
</script>

Example: React

Here's a quick look at how to integrate walkerOS into a React application.

1. Create a walker setup file:

import type { Collector, WalkerOS } from '@walkeros/core';
import { startFlow } from '@walkeros/collector';

import { createTagger, sourceBrowser } from '@walkeros/web-source-browser';

// Global type declarations
declare global {
  interface Window {
    elb: WalkerOS.Elb;
    walker: Collector.Instance;
  }
}

export async function initializeWalker(): Promise<void> {
  // Skip initialization if already done
  if (window.walker) return;

  // Create collector with run: false for manual pageview control
  const { collector } = await startFlow({
    run: false,
    consent: { functional: true },
    sources: {
      browser: {
        code: sourceBrowser,
        config: {
          settings: {
            pageview: true,
            session: true,
            elb: 'elb',
          },
        },
      },
    },
    destinations: {
      // Your destinations - add console for testing
      console: {
        push(event, data) {
          console.log('Event:', event, data);
        },
      },
    },
  });

  // Set global window object
  window.walker = collector;
}

// Tagger helper for easy component tagging
const taggerInstance = createTagger();

export function tagger(entity?: string) {
  return taggerInstance(entity);
}

2. Integrate into your App component:

import { Routes, Route, useLocation } from 'react-router-dom';
import { useEffect, useRef } from 'react';
import { initializeWalker } from './walker';

function App() {
  const location = useLocation();
  const hasInitialized = useRef(false);
  const firstRun = useRef(true);

  useEffect(() => {
    // Prevent React StrictMode double execution
    if (!hasInitialized.current) {
      initializeWalker();
      hasInitialized.current = true;
    }
  }, []);

  useEffect(() => {
    // Skip first run to prevent double page views
    if (firstRun.current) {
      firstRun.current = false;
      return;
    }

    window.elb('walker run');
  }, [location]);

  return (
    <div className="min-h-screen bg-gray-50">
      <Routes>
        <Route path="/" element={<Home />} />
        <Route path="/category" element={<Category />} />
        <Route path="/product/:id" element={<Detail />} />
      </Routes>
    </div>
  );
}

export default App;

3. Tag your components:

import { tagger } from '../walker';

function ProductDetail({ productId }: { productId: string }) {
  const product = getProductById(parseInt(productId));

  return (
    <div
      {...tagger()
        .entity('product')
        .action('load', 'view')
        .data('productId', productId)
        .get()}
      className="bg-white rounded-lg shadow p-8"
    >
      <h1
        {...tagger('product').data('name', product.name).get()}
        className="text-3xl font-bold mb-2"
      >
        {product.name}
      </h1>

      <p
        {...tagger('product').data('price', product.price).get()}
        className="text-3xl font-bold text-blue-600"
      >
        €{product.price}
      </p>

      <button
        {...tagger().action('click', 'add').get()}
        className="w-full bg-blue-600 text-white py-3 px-6 rounded-lg"
      >
        Add to Cart
      </button>
    </div>
  );
}

Destinations

Destinations are the endpoints where walkerOS sends your processed events. They transform standardized walkerOS events into specific formats required by analytics platforms, marketing tools, and data warehouses.

Web Destinations

• API - Send events to your own endpoints
• Google (gtag) - GA4, Google Ads, and GTM integration
• Meta Pixel - Facebook and Instagram advertising
• Plausible Analytics - Privacy-focused web analytics
• Piwik PRO - Privacy-focused analytics platform

Server Destinations

• AWS Firehose - Amazon cloud services integration
• GCP BigQuery - GCP services and BigQuery
• Meta Conversions API - Server-side Facebook/Instagram tracking

Contributing

⭐️ Help us grow and star us. See our Contributing Guidelines to get involved.

Support

Need help? Start a discussion, or reach out via email.

For more insights, visit the talks repository.

License

Licensed under the MIT License.