Sensor data types (SDTs) define the structure of the raw metric data that is collected by the sensors that are attached to your development tools and then sent to the Hackystat server for use by your analyses and alerts. This chapter documents the structure of the sensor data types defined in this configuration of Hackystat, and some of the possible abstractions that can be built from this raw data.

In general, there is a many-to-many relationship between Hackystat sensors (the small programs attached to development tools) and Hackystat sensor data types (the type of process or product information collected from the use of the tool). For example, sensors attached to editors could collect both Activity and UnitTest SDT information. Conversely, the UnitTest SDT could be used in editor sensors and test tool sensors. To see which SDTs are associated with which sensors, consult Chapter 2, Client-side configuration: Tool sensor installation.

Every sensor data type always contains two implicitly defined attributes: a "tstamp" attribute (which represents the time when the instance of the SDT occurred) and a "tool" attribute (representing the tool that collected or generated this instance of the SDT.) The "tstamp" attribute is a UTC timestamp in milliseconds. The tool attribute provides a record of which tool generated the information. For example, an instance of the UnitTest SDT could have been collected by either the sensor attached to the "Eclipse" tool or by a sensor attached to the "JUnit" tool.

The following sections describe specific sensor data types.