gtm-tools

CLI tool to simplify working with Google Tag Manager (GTM).

If you work with a GTM account and need its entities into a development account for testing GTM settings and find it difficult to keep the two accounts in sync, you will find gtm-tools handy.

With gtm-tools, you can:

• List entities in a GTM account
• Copy entities from one GTM account to another
• Get diff between entities of two GTM accounts
• Reset a GTM account

Use Cases

gtm-tools is targeted towards developers using GTM to manager 3rd party integrations on their web applications. Most of the use-cases are to cater to developers' needs.

Here are some of the use cases:

1. Take a quick look into your GTM account without using the web console
2. Take the backup of your production GTM account into a backup account
3. Prepare a new GTM account with prod-like configuration for your development environment.
4. Once you test your changes in your GTM account for the development environment, check the diff (like git) between your dev and production GTM accounts. If the changes look good, copy the changes to the production GTM account.
5. If you mess up your dev GTM account and want to start from scratch, reset it quickly and then copy the configuration from production to start over.

Installation

npm install gtm-tools

Configuration

gtm-tools works between two or more GTM accounts. Before proceeding, make sure that you have access to your accounts.

Prepare the configuration

Start with the example config.

cp example.config.json config.json

Edit config.json to add as many GTM accounts you would like to work with. Typical users will have two accounts and their config.json can look like this:

{
  "tagManagerAPI": {
    "defaultRateLimitBatchSize": 1,
    "defaultRateLimitBatchDelay": 5000
  },
  "accounts": [
    {
      "alias": "gtm-prod",
      "accountId": "12345678",
      "containerId": "12345678",
      "workspaceId": "2",
      "isResettable": false,
      "variableOverrides": {}
    },
    {
      "alias": "gtm-dev",
      "accountId": "87654321",
      "containerId": "87654321",
      "workspaceId": "2",
      "isResettable": true,
      "variableOverrides": {}
    }
  ]
}

To find accountId, containerId and workspaceId for your accounts, log in to your GTM account web console. The URL of the web console has all the required details. For example, the URL for web console for gtm-prod account could like this:

https://tagmanager.google.com/?authuser=1#/container/accounts/12345678/containers/12345678/workspaces/2

Configure credentials for accessing Google Tag Manager API

gtm-tools needs a Service Account with access to Google Tag Manager API to work. Setting up a Service Account with proper accesses is a multi-step complex process. Head over the to the detailed docs here to setup the Service Account and generate your credentials.

Now that you have your credentials in a JSON file, which is also known as the key file (let's call this file credentials.json), you are ready to tell gtm-tools how to use these credentials. Do so by updating the path to tagManagerAPI.googleAuthKeyFile config in config.json file.

Now, test these credentials with gtm-tools by running the following command:

gtm-tools --config config.json list -aa gtm-prod

The command should execute successfully showing the configuration of your account.

Configuration Options

Configuration Key	Type	Default	Required	Description
tagManagerAPI.googleAuthKeyFile	string		Yes	Path to the Google Auth API credentials or key file download from Google Cloud Console. Read the detailed docs here to understand how to get your key file.
tagManagerAPI.defaultRateLimitBatchSize	int	1		Batch size for the count of API requests to be made to Tag Manager API without a delay. After this batch, a delay will be injected before the next batch starts, controlled by defaultRateLimitBatchDelay.
tagManagerAPI.defaultRateLimitBatchDelay	int	5000		Add delay (in milliseconds) between subsequent batches of requests to Tag Manager API to avoid rate limiting.
accounts[].alias	string		Yes	Human-friendly alias to refer to the account while using gtm-tools.
accounts[].accountId	string		Yes	Account ID of the GTM account.
accounts[].containerId	string		Yes	Container ID of the container within the GTM account.
accounts[].workspaceId	string		Yes	Workspace ID of the workspace within the container to use.
accounts[].isResettable	boolean	false		Prevents gtm-tools from resetting an account accidentally. When set to false, gtm-tools reset command will not execute.
accounts[].variableOverrides{}	Map<string, string>	{}		Key-value mapping of a Variable Name in GTM container with a value to replace while copying the variable to this account. Example: { "Hotjar Account ID": "hotjar-dev-account-id-1234" }

Usage

gtm-tools supports several commands. Get help using --help option:

gtm-tools --help

Here is an example usage:

gtm-tools --config config.json list -aa <gtm-account-alias-in-config>

Commands

list

The list command lists entities in a Google Tag Manager account.

gtm-tools list -a <ACCOUNT_ID> -c <CONTAINER_ID> -w <WORKSPACE_ID>

The list command comes with options:

• -o, --output <FORMAT>: outputs the results in one of these formats - text, json, yaml, csv. This option can be used to backup the configuration of a GTM account.

copy

The copy command copies settings from one Google Tag Manager account to another. This is helpful when working with setting up GTM account for a non-production environment.

The default behavior is that it will perform a diff between all the entities of both the accounts and copy only the changes from the source account to the target account.

While copying, gtm-tools will look for variables that have been provided an override using variableOverrides configuration for the target account and set the value provided in the configuration. This comes handy to easily change things like configurations or credentials for 3rd party services in different environments.

gtm-tools copy -sa <SOURCE_ACCOUNT_ID> -sc <SOURCE_CONTAINER_ID> -sw <SOURCE_WORKSPACE_ID> -ta <TARGET_ACCOUNT_ID> -tc <TARGET_CONTAINER_ID> -tw <TARGET_WORKSPACE_ID>

The copy command comes with options:

• -r, --reset: changes the default behavior. It resets the target GTM account i.e. it deletes all entities in the target GTM account and copies all the entities from the source account.

diff

The diff command generates a diff of settings between two GTM accounts. This is helpful when testing new settings in a non-production GTM account and comparing them before applying the changes in your production account using the copy command.

gtm-tools diff -saa <SOURCE_ACCOUNT_ALIAS> -ta <TARGET_ACCOUNT_ALIAS>

Examples:

• Review changes in non-production account (Account Alias: DEV_ACCOUNT) before promoting changes to the production account (Account Alias: PROD_ACCOUNT):

  gtm-tools diff -saa DEV_ACCOUNT -taa PROD_ACCOUNT
  

  When everything looks good, use the copy command to apply the changes from the non-production account to the production account:

  gtm-tools copy -saa DEV_ACCOUNT -taa PROD_ACCOUNT
  

reset

The reset command resets a Google Tag Manager account i.e. it deletes all entities in an account.

gtm-tools reset -a <ACCOUNT_ID> -c <CONTAINER_ID> -w <WORKSPACE_ID>