> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.appsignal.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Breadcrumbs

<Tip>
  Breadcrumbs are available since Ruby gem version `2.11.2`.
</Tip>

Breadcrumbs where initially implemented in our [Front-end Javascript library](/front-end/breadcrumbs) with the idea that it would help debug an issue when you have a trail of breadcrumbs with (user) actions leading up to the error.

We then realized this could also be useful for back-end requests, where you can add a time-ordered list of actions leading up to the error. For example adding breadcrumbs through decision trees that are otherwise not instrumented.

<img src="https://mintcdn.com/appsignal-715f5a51/nF8c1Rwq1cS7b5hg/assets/images/screenshots/frontend/breadcrumbs.svg?fit=max&auto=format&n=nF8c1Rwq1cS7b5hg&q=85&s=1f7cb85f6a8662c46a42a3aa90340eb4" alt="Breadcrumbs" width="648" height="366" data-path="assets/images/screenshots/frontend/breadcrumbs.svg" />

## Usage

By default, no breadcrumbs are tracked, but it's really easy to track your own.

Wherever an interesting event, operation or state change occurs in your app, you can leave a breadcrumb like so:

<CodeGroup>
  ```ruby Ruby theme={null}
  Appsignal.add_breadcrumb("Navigation", "https://example.com", "", { :response => 200 }, Time.now.utc)
  Appsignal.add_breadcrumb("Network", "[GET] https://example.com", "", { :response => 500 })
  Appsignal.add_breadcrumb("UI", "closed modal(change_password)", "User closed modal without actions")
  ```
</CodeGroup>

Only the last 20 added breadcrumbs will be added to the current transaction.

## Breadcrumb Options

| Option   | Type                     | Description                                                             |
| -------- | ------------------------ | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| category | String                   | Category to label the event under                                       |
| action   | String                   | Contextual information related to the event                             |
| message  | String                   | (optional) A log message or other string to send to AppSignal           |
| metadata | `Object<String, String>` | (optional) An object of metadata related to the event                   |
| time     | Time object              | (optional) Time object that responds to `.to_i`, defaults to `Time.utc` |