@coast/logger

node-logger

This package uses the Bunyan logging library to provide a stream capable log handler that can send your logs to a variety of places. By default, the logger outputs to the console (stdout), but you can also stream your server side logs to services like Loggly or even save them to a database.

Log Level

Most loggers have the concept of log level. That allows you to filter what is visible in your logs (see available levels and their descriptions below). The default level is INFO. To override the log level on the server, you can set the LOG_LEVEL environment variable to one of the valid values below.

Environment Variables

To set the logger name that appears at the beginning of every log line and as the name key in the raw JSON output, you can set...

# default: API
export LOGGER_NAME="My API"

The default log level is INFO, but you can override that with LOG_LEVEL (see more about available levels below).

LOG_LEVEL="DEBUG" node myapp.js

Or export it first...

export LOG_LEVEL="DEBUG"

node myapp.js

To set it in production (assuming you're using Docker), it would look like this:

docker run -e LOG_LEVEL="DEBUG" ...

Log Levels

When doing custom development and adding more logging to the app, we suggest following the Bunyan recommendations on log levels and use appropriate levels for your messages.

The log levels in Bunyan are as follows. The level descriptions are best practice opinions.

• "TRACE" (10): Logging from external libraries used by your app or very detailed application logging.
• "DEBUG" (20): Anything too verbose to be included in the standard "info" level.
• "INFO" (30): Detail on regular operation.
• "WARN" (40): Detail on something that should probably be looked at by an operator eventually.
• "ERROR" (50): Fatal for a particular event, but the service/app continues servicing other events. An operator should look at this soon.
• "FATAL" (60): The service/app is going to stop or become unusable now. An operator should definitely look into this soon.

Usage

import Logger from "@coast/logger";

/**
 * Logging general info
 */

// a general message string
Logger.info("Something important happened!");

// include some event-specific data in the message string
Logger.info(`Order ID ${order._id} has been submitted by user ${order.userId}`);

// or extend the JSON output of the logger with an object
// (note that the object should go before the message text)
Logger.info({ order }, "Order has been submitted");


/**
 * Logging warnings
 */

// Log a non-critical warning that should be investigated
Logger.warn("API key missing. The feature won't work.");


/**
 * Logging errors
 */

Logger.error("Oh no! Something went wrong!");

// Bunyan has an error object parser built in, so you can pass
// errors into the logger and it will format them in your console
// as well as extend the raw JSON log output if you are piping
// your logs to another service like Loggly.
// (note that the error object should go before the message text)
doSomething((err, result) => {
  if (err) {
    Logger.error(err, "Something went wrong!");
    throw err;
  }
  Logger.info("That thing worked!");
  // or
  Logger.info({ result }, "That thing worked!");
});


/**
 * Logging fatal events
 */

// If an event is considered fatal (will stop the app from functioning
// entirely), you should use the FATAL log level.
// Note that this will rarely be needed.  Most negative events
// are just warnings or errors and don't entirely prevent the
// app from continuing to run.
Logger.fatal("The app is going to crash now! Attention needed!");