Adding appnexus debug via cookie/params

[aneuway2]

Type of change

• Feature

Description of change

The following feature enhancement adds in the ability for a publisher or developer to request an AppNexus AST debug auction in the response back from AppNexus alongside any bids.

This feature can be enabled by either of the following two methods along with the pbjs_debug=true query string parameter.

1. By adding a debug object in parallel to the bids requested:

{
  bidder: 'appnexus',
  params: {
    placementId: 123456789
  },
  debug: {
    enabled: true,
    dongle: 'QWERTY',
    member_id: 958,
    debug_timeout: 3000
  }
}

2. By setting an apn_prebid_debug cookie with a JSON string:

{ "enabled": true, "dongle": "QWERTY", "debug_timeout": 1000, "member_id": 958 }

When both of the above are enabled, settings from the browser cookie will prevail.

There also is no guarantee that the prebid debug may not freeze the browser (e.g in the case where gigabytes of data are returned) but this should be okay since this enables further debug information for developers only.

For more information on how to read the debug auction results, please see https://wiki.appnexus.com/display/console/Debug+Auction+Glossary

Sample Console Log:

Running member 958 debug using no permissions
Impbus 4280.bm-impbus.prod.nym2:8001
	Header Referer: http://example.com?pbjs_debug=true&ast_debug=true&ast_dongle=sss
	Site Domain: example.com
1772142023491463321 - Predicted engagement_rate_id: 2 (view) imps 54.87%
1772142023491463321 - Predicted engagement_rate_id: 3 (view_over_total) imps 51.57%
1772142023491463321 - Predicted engagement_rate_id: 8 (predicted_100pv1s_display_view_rate) imps 47.06%

[mkendall07]

This pull request introduces 1 alert when merging d633c7b into e7ad006 - view on LGTM.com

new alerts:

• 1 for Useless conditional

---

Comment posted by LGTM.com

[jsnellbaker]

Hi @aneuway2 Thanks for putting this together.

There are a few things that should be reviewed (see in-line comments below).

As a usage question, if someone misconfigured one of the variables such that it would only pass 3 of the 4 accepted values - do you still want to pass the debug property to the request object with the partial set? Or do you only want to pass the debug property when all 4 are present? At the moment, it seems you would do the former.

I'm not familiar with the field's requirements on the impbus end - so I wanted to clarify it here and see if that would be an issue we should prevent via the logic you put together.

Also what docs changes are you thinking for this addition?

[aneuway2]

@jsnellbaker - made changes to make that more straightforward.

if someone misconfigured one of the variables

This should be okay. The debug auction will still be returned as long as enabled=true. I did add a check to make sure this was true

what docs changes are you thinking for this addition

I was planning on adding this as a separate section at the bottom of the readme on prebid.org with pretty much the same language as what is in this PR description

[mkendall07]

This pull request introduces 1 alert when merging d51c898 into c2847ab - view on LGTM.com

new alerts:

• 1 for Useless conditional

---

Comment posted by LGTM.com

[mkendall07]

This pull request introduces 1 alert when merging d51c898 into 3ba867a - view on LGTM.com

new alerts:

• 1 for Useless conditional

---

Comment posted by LGTM.com

[jsnellbaker]

@aneuway2 Thanks for making the changes to the code; it looks much better now. Would you be able to quickly address the LGTM warning/alert?

Also, did you get the chance to put together the docs PR? Once that's made/linked here, we should be good to merge.

[aneuway2]

Added docs PR @jsnellbaker 👍