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Logging Best Practices for Production Applications

Log effectively for debugging and monitoring. From structured logging to log levels to centralized aggregation.

B
Bootspring Team
Engineering
November 28, 2023
5 min read

Good logging is your window into production systems. It helps debug issues, monitor health, and understand user behavior. Here's how to log effectively.

Structured Logging#

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Logger Setup (Pino)#

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Log Levels#

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Request/Response Logging#

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Error Logging#

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Correlation IDs#

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Log Aggregation#

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Sensitive Data#

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Performance Logging#

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Best Practices#

DO: ✓ Use structured JSON logging ✓ Include correlation IDs ✓ Log at appropriate levels ✓ Redact sensitive data ✓ Include relevant context ✓ Centralize log aggregation DON'T: ✗ Log sensitive data (passwords, tokens) ✗ Use console.log in production ✗ Log too much (performance impact) ✗ Log too little (missing context) ✗ Ignore log rotation

Conclusion#

Effective logging is essential for production operations. Use structured logging, include correlation IDs, aggregate logs centrally, and always redact sensitive data.

Good logs tell the story of what happened—make sure yours are readable.

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