Quickstart: Log Your First Audit Event in 5 Minutes

This guide walks you from zero to your first tamper-proof audit event. You’ll create a free account, grab an API key, install the SDK for your language, and send a real event that you can immediately inspect in the AuditRails dashboard. The entire process takes about five minutes.

Create Your Free Account

Head to app.auditrails.io/register and sign up for a free account. You get a 90-day free trial with no credit card required — full platform access from day one.

Your account starts on the Starter Trails plan. You can upgrade at any time from Dashboard → Billing without losing any existing log data.

Create an API Key

Every event is authenticated with an API key scoped to a project. To create one:

Open the AuditRails Dashboard.
Navigate to API Keys in the left sidebar.
Click Create API Key, give it a name (e.g. my-app-dev), and select the project you want to scope it to.
Copy the key immediately — it starts with at_live_... and is shown only once.

AuditRails stores only a SHA-256 hash of your key, never the raw value. If you lose it, you must revoke it and create a new one. Store it in a secrets manager or environment variable right away.

Install the SDK

Choose the package for your language and runtime:

npm install @auditrails/node

composer require auditrails/auditrails-php

pip install auditrails

go get github.com/auditrails/auditrails-go

<dependency>
  <groupId>io.auditrails</groupId>
  <artifactId>auditrails-java</artifactId>
  <version>1.0.0</version>
</dependency>

Log Your First Event

Initialize the client with your API key and send a user.login event. Replace at_live_... with the key you copied in step 2.

import { AuditRails } from '@auditrails/node';

const audit = new AuditRails({ apiKey: 'at_live_...' });

await audit.log({
  action: 'user.login',
  actorId: 'user_123',
  resource: 'session/sess_abc',
  metadata: {
    ip: '203.0.113.1',
    method: 'password',
  },
});

use AuditRails\AuditRails;

$audit = new AuditRails(
    new Config(apiKey: 'at_live_...'),
    new Client(),
    new HttpFactory(),
    new HttpFactory()
);

$audit->log(new AuditEvent(
    action: 'user.login',
    actorId: 'user_123',
    resource: 'session/sess_abc',
    metadata: ['ip' => '203.0.113.1', 'method' => 'password']
));

from auditrails import AuditRails, AuditRailsConfig

audit = AuditRails(AuditRailsConfig(api_key='at_live_...'))

audit.log({
    'action': 'user.login',
    'actor_id': 'user_123',
    'resource': 'session/sess_abc',
    'metadata': {
        'ip': '203.0.113.1',
        'method': 'password',
    },
})

package main

import "github.com/auditrails/auditrails-go"

func main() {
    client, _ := auditrails.New("at_live_...", auditrails.Options{})
    defer client.Close()

    client.Log(auditrails.Event{
        Action:   "user.login",
        ActorID:  "user_123",
        Resource: "session/sess_abc",
        Metadata: map[string]any{
            "ip":     "203.0.113.1",
            "method": "password",
        },
    })
}

import io.auditrails.AuditRails;
import io.auditrails.AuditEvent;
import java.util.Map;

try (AuditRails audit = AuditRails.builder("at_live_...").build()) {
    audit.log(
        AuditEvent.builder("user.login")
            .actorId("user_123")
            .resource("session/sess_abc")
            .metadata(Map.of(
                "ip", "203.0.113.1",
                "method", "password"
            ))
            .build()
    );
}

The SDK automatically attaches a log_id (ULID), your tenant_id, and a precise timestamp to every event before it is hashed and stored. You never need to set these manually.

View Your Event in the Dashboard

Open Dashboard → Logs. Your user.login event should appear within a few seconds. Click any row to inspect:

The full event payload and metadata
The computed SHA-256 hash and its position in the chain
The previous-hash link that proves chain integrity
The WORM storage confirmation and retention expiry date

What’s Next

Core Concepts

Understand projects, events, hash chains, storage tiers, and retention policies.

Authentication

Learn about API key formats, security best practices, and error codes.

API Reference

Explore every endpoint and field in the full REST API reference.

Compliance Guides

See how AuditRails satisfies SOC 2, HIPAA, GDPR, PCI DSS, and 13 more frameworks.

​What’s Next

Core Concepts

Authentication

API Reference

Compliance Guides

What’s Next