Cross Platform Structured Logging

Benefits:

• Query: user_id:user_123 AND level:error
• Aggregate: Count logins by auth_method
• Correlate: Find all logs for trace_id

Unified Log Schema

Use consistent field names across all platforms:

Standard Fields

Context Fields (as needed)

{
  "http": {
    "method": "POST",
    "url": "/api/users",
    "status_code": 201,
    "user_agent": "Mozilla/5.0..."
  },
  "error": {
    "type": "ValidationError",
    "message": "Invalid email",
    "stack": "Error: Invalid email\n  at..."
  }
}

Node.js: Pino

Pino is the fastest JSON logger for Node.js.

Basic Setup

// lib/logger.ts
import pino from 'pino'

const logger = pino({
  level: process.env.LOG_LEVEL || 'info',

  // Pretty print in development
  transport: process.env.NODE_ENV === 'development'
    ? { target: 'pino-pretty', options: { colorize: true } }
    : undefined,

  // Base fields included in every log
  base: {
    service: {
      name: process.env.SERVICE_NAME || 'api',
      version: process.env.SERVICE_VERSION || '1.0.0'
    },
    environment: process.env.NODE_ENV || 'development'
  },

  // Redact sensitive fields
  redact: {
    paths: ['password', 'api_key', 'credit_card', '*.password', '*.token'],
    censor: '[REDACTED]'
  }
})

export default logger

Usage

import logger from '@/lib/logger'

// Simple message
logger.info('Server started')

// With context
logger.info({ user_id: '123', action: 'login' }, 'User logged in')

// Child logger (adds context to all subsequent logs)
const requestLogger = logger.child({ request_id: req.id })
requestLogger.info('Processing request')
requestLogger.error({ err }, 'Request failed')

Middleware Integration (Next.js API Routes)

// lib/logger-middleware.ts
import { NextRequest, NextResponse } from 'next/server'
import logger from '@/lib/logger'

export function withLogging(
  handler: (req: NextRequest) => Promise<NextResponse>
) {
  return async (req: NextRequest) => {
    const requestLogger = logger.child({
      request_id: crypto.randomUUID(),
      http: {
        method: req.method,
        url: req.url
      }
    })

    requestLogger.info('Request started')

    try {
      const response = await handler(req)
      requestLogger.info({ status: response.status }, 'Request completed')
      return response
    } catch (error) {
      requestLogger.error({ err: error }, 'Request failed')
      throw error
    }
  }
}

// Usage in API route
export const GET = withLogging(async (req) => {
  // Your handler logic
})

Production Configuration (Async Transport)

// lib/logger.ts (production)
import pino from 'pino'

const logger = pino({
  level: 'info',

  // Don't use pino-pretty in production (performance)
  transport: process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production'
    ? {
        target: 'pino/file',
        options: { destination: 1 } // stdout
      }
    : { target: 'pino-pretty' },

  // Async logging (don't block event loop)
  destination: pino.destination({
    sync: false // Async mode
  })
})

export default logger

Python: structlog

structlog integrates with Python's standard logging library.

Basic Setup

# logging_config.py
import structlog
import logging
import sys

def configure_logging():
    # Configure standard library logging
    logging.basicConfig(
        format="%(message)s",
        stream=sys.stdout,
        level=logging.INFO,
    )

    # Configure structlog
    structlog.configure(
        processors=[
            # Add log level
            structlog.stdlib.add_log_level,

            # Add timestamp
            structlog.processors.TimeStamper(fmt="iso"),

            # Add calling location (file:line)
            structlog.processors.CallsiteParameterAdder(
                parameters=[
                    structlog.processors.CallsiteParameter.FILENAME,
                    structlog.processors.CallsiteParameter.LINENO,
                ]
            ),

            # Format exceptions
            structlog.processors.format_exc_info,

            # Render as JSON
            structlog.processors.JSONRenderer()
        ],
        wrapper_class=structlog.stdlib.BoundLogger,
        context_class=dict,
        logger_factory=structlog.stdlib.LoggerFactory(),
        cache_logger_on_first_use=True,
    )

# Call at app startup
configure_logging()

Usage

import structlog

logger = structlog.get_logger()

# Simple message
logger.info("server_started", port=8000)

# With context
logger.info(
    "user_logged_in",
    user_id="user_123",
    auth_method="oauth"
)

# Error logging