General Logging

Logging is hard. Some tips on logging taken from

• https://betterstack.com/community/guides/logging/log-levels-explained/
• https://betterstack.com/community/guides/logging/logging-best-practices/
• https://betterstack.com/community/guides/logging/nodejs-logging-best-practices/

I know it says for Node.js but it is applicable elsewhere.

Just going to do a brief rundown

1. log levels
2. structured logging (like json)
3. aggregate and centralize logs (more for web)
4. logging performance (this can have an issue)
5. log to stdout
6. add timestamps and context (like req for express)
7. add stack trace

For log levels, I like

• FATAL/CRITICAL: bad, unrecoverable
• ERROR: bad, but recoverable
• WARN: not too bad
• INFO: operation summary, general stuff
• DEBUG: nitty gritty, database queries, timing, configuration stuff
• TRACE: entering and leaving functions (rust has cool stuff with this)