Add CLItrail to Create React App (legacy)

Where the CLItrail tag goes in Create React App (legacy), in its own idiom, with the consent, CSP and client-side routing details and how to check it works.

Written for react-scripts 5 (Create React App is deprecated)

#Where the tag goes

Edit public/index.html. Put the tag on every page that shows your install command; site-wide is best, after your existing analytics tags.

<head>
  <meta charset="utf-8" />
  <!-- …your analytics tags first -->
  <script defer src="https://YOUR_SERVICE/browser.js" data-website="YOUR_WEBSITE_ID"></script>
</head>

Use the loader in place of the tag: nothing from CLItrail loads until startClitrail() runs. Load the loader before your consent manager's script and call startClitrail() from the manager's accept callback (most managers also run it on later visits once a choice is stored; check yours). Use the marketing category when installs go to Google Ads, Meta, TikTok or X Ads, and the analytics category when they only reach GA4 or your webhooks.

Consent loader

// Loads CLItrail only after the visitor agrees. Call startClitrail() from your
// consent manager's "accepted" callback; nothing is fetched or stored before that.
window.startClitrail = () => {
  if (document.getElementById('clitrail')) return;
  const tag = document.createElement('script');
  tag.id = 'clitrail';
  tag.src = 'https://YOUR_SERVICE/browser.js';
  tag.dataset.website = 'YOUR_WEBSITE_ID';
  document.head.append(tag);
};

<head>
  <meta charset="utf-8" />
  <!-- …your analytics tags first -->
  <script defer src="%PUBLIC_URL%/clitrail-consent.js"></script>
</head>

#Client-side routing

React Router changes pages without a reload. Render <ClitrailRoutes /> once inside your router: it records a visit each time the path changes. The page the browser loaded is recorded by the tag, not again.

Route helper

// Records a visit when client-side navigation opens a new page path. The tag records
// the page the browser loaded, so that page is never recorded twice; before the SDK has
// started (for example, before consent) it records nothing.
let recorded;

export function recordVisit() {
  if (typeof window === 'undefined') return;
  recorded ??= new URL(performance.getEntriesByType('navigation')[0]?.name ?? location.href).pathname;
  const sdk = window.InstallAttribution;
  if (!sdk?.ready || location.pathname === recorded) return;
  recorded = location.pathname;
  sdk.ready = sdk.init({ service: 'https://YOUR_SERVICE', project: 'YOUR_WEBSITE_ID' });
}

import { useEffect } from 'react';
import { useLocation } from 'react-router-dom';
import { recordVisit } from './clitrail';

// Render once inside your router: records a visit whenever the path changes.
export function ClitrailRoutes() {
  const { pathname } = useLocation();
  useEffect(() => { recordVisit(); }, [pathname]);
  return null;
}

#Content Security Policy

Your host's header settings (for example _headers on Cloudflare Pages or Netlify, vercel.json, or your server), or a <meta http-equiv="Content-Security-Policy"> tag: add https://YOUR_SERVICE to script-src and connect-src, and blob: to worker-src (only Safari before 26 needs that one).

script-src 'self' https://YOUR_SERVICE;
connect-src 'self' https://YOUR_SERVICE;
worker-src 'self' blob:;

#Verify it works

Run npm start (http://localhost:3000) or deploy.
Open a page with the tag in Chrome or Firefox (accept analytics first if you gate CLItrail on consent), open the developer console and run await InstallAttribution.ready. It resolves to { ok: true, urlId, hasAnalyticsContext, expiresAt }.
In the CLItrail dashboard, open Visits & identities: the visit is listed.
Anything else names the cause: disabled (no consent yet, or data-enabled="false"), opfs_unavailable (the page is not served over https or from localhost), Error (the service refused the visit: add the page's origin, including a development origin such as http://localhost:3000, under Settings → Additional domains). If InstallAttribution is undefined, the tag did not load: check the Network tab and your Content-Security-Policy.

Then run your installer on the same computer and check Install events, or run the hook with --doctor.

#Notes

The React team deprecated Create React App in February 2025; the tag works the same after a move to Vite (see React + Vite).

Create React App (legacy) documentation: react.dev/blog/2025/02/14/sunsetting-create-react-app

Using other install paths or destinations? The setup generator puts this snippet together with your hooks and destination checklist.