Logs

File-based configuration

You can add _FILE to individual variables to provide their configuration in a separate file. Refer to Keeping sensitive data in separate files for more details.

This page lists environment variables to set up logging for debugging. Refer to Logging in n8n for details.

n8n logs

Variable	Type	Default	Description
N8N_LOG_LEVEL	Enum string: info, warn, error, debug	info	Log output level. Refer to Log levels for details.
N8N_LOG_OUTPUT	Enum string: console, file	console	Where to output logs. Provide multiple values as a comma-separated list.
N8N_LOG_FORMAT	Enum string: text, json	text	The log format to use. text prints human readable messages. json prints one JSON object per line containing the message, level, timestamp, and all metadata. This is useful for production monitoring as well as debugging.
N8N_LOG_CRON_ACTIVE_INTERVAL	Number	0	Interval in minutes to log currently active cron jobs. Set to 0 to disable.
N8N_LOG_FILE_COUNT_MAX	Number	100	Max number of log files to keep.
N8N_LOG_FILE_SIZE_MAX	Number	16	Max size of each log file in MB.
N8N_LOG_FILE_LOCATION	String	<n8n-directory-path>/logs/n8n.log	Log file location. Requires N8N_LOG_OUTPUT set to file.
DB_LOGGING_ENABLED	Boolean	false	Whether to enable database-specific logging.
DB_LOGGING_OPTIONS	Enum string: query, error, schema, warn, info, log	error	Database log output level. To enable all logging, specify all. Refer to TypeORM logging options
DB_LOGGING_MAX_EXECUTION_TIME	Number	1000	Maximum execution time (in milliseconds) before n8n logs a warning. Set to 0 to disable long running query warning.
CODE_ENABLE_STDOUT	Boolean	false	Set to true to send Code node logs from console.log or print to the process's stdout, only for production executions.
NO_COLOR	any	undefined	Set to any value to output logs without ANSI colors. For more information, see the no-color.org website.

Log streaming

Refer to Log streaming for more information on this feature.

Variable	Type	Default	Description
N8N_EVENTBUS_CHECKUNSENTINTERVAL	Number	0	How often (in milliseconds) to check for unsent event messages. Can in rare cases send message twice. Set to 0 to disable it.
N8N_EVENTBUS_LOGWRITER_SYNCFILEACCESS	Boolean	false	Whether all file access happens synchronously within the thread (true) or not (false).
N8N_EVENTBUS_LOGWRITER_KEEPLOGCOUNT	Number	3	Number of event log files to keep.
N8N_EVENTBUS_LOGWRITER_MAXFILESIZEINKB	Number	10240	Maximum size (in kilo-bytes) of an event log file before a new one starts.
N8N_EVENTBUS_LOGWRITER_LOGBASENAME	String	n8nEventLog	Basename of the event log file. Ignored when N8N_EVENTBUS_LOGWRITER_LOGFULLPATH is set.
N8N_EVENTBUS_LOGWRITER_LOGFULLPATH	String	''	Absolute path to the event log file. Must end in .log. When set, this path is used verbatim and overrides N8N_EVENTBUS_LOGWRITER_LOGBASENAME and the default per-process suffix. Use this to give each n8n process a unique event log path when multiple processes share a writable filesystem. Refer to Per-process event log files for details.
N8N_EVENTBUS_LOGWRITER_MAXTOTALMESSAGESPERFILE	Number	500000	Maximum number of lines parsed from a single event log file during recovery. Bounds memory use when an event log file contains many invalid lines.

Manage log streaming destinations from environment variables

Set N8N_LOG_STREAMING_MANAGED_BY_ENV to true to manage log streaming destinations from environment variables. See Manage instance settings using environment variables for how the activation pattern works, and Configure log streaming destinations using environment variables for the per-destination JSON shape.

Variable	Type	Default	Description
N8N_LOG_STREAMING_MANAGED_BY_ENV	Boolean	false	Set to true to manage log streaming from environment variables. When true, n8n applies the log streaming variables on every startup and locks the matching UI controls.
N8N_LOG_STREAMING_DESTINATIONS	JSON string	-	JSON array of log streaming destinations. Each destination is an object with a type of webhook, syslog, or sentry, plus the configuration for that type.