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explore: --sort is ignored on the errors dataset, so --limit yields an arbitrary N rows instead of a top N

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#1,517 0 comments 1 reaction 1 assignee View on GitHub

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Since Sep 1, 2026.

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Description

jared

Summary

sentry explore --dataset errors --sort '-count()' prints:

[explore]  WARN  --sort is only supported on the spans dataset. Ignoring sort for errors.

Combined with --limit, this means an errors aggregate is an arbitrary N rows, not a top N — but the flag combination reads exactly like a top-N request, and the warning does not say that the returned rows are unordered.

The underlying events endpoint does support ordering on errors:

sentry api "/organizations/<org>/events/?field=failure.node&field=count()\
&query=release%3A%22<release>%22&statsPeriod=14d&project=<id>&dataset=errors\
&sort=-count()&per_page=5" --json

returns a correctly descending result:

ReturnMain                       = 1625
(empty)                          = 1510
TargetCountStartReplay           =  485
controller_initialization_failed =  413
HomeFlag                         =  289

Environment

sentry 0.40.0
node v24.18.0
Windows 10.0.26200

Request

Either:

  1. plumb --sort through to the events endpoint's sort parameter for the errors dataset (the capability is already there); or
  2. if that is intentionally unsupported, make the warning state the consequence — that the result is an arbitrary subset and must not be treated as a ranking — and mention the events-endpoint alternative.

Why it matters

"Which failures dominate release X" is the most common aggregate question, and the natural formulation is --field ... --field 'count()' --sort '-count()' --limit 25. Today that silently returns 25 arbitrary rows. To rank anything you have to pull the full result set and sort locally, which then runs into #1519 (duplicate rows and a non-reproducible total on the same dataset). Fixing either one alone still leaves errors aggregates unusable for ranking.

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