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Set up logging

Logging is an important feature for debugging. n8n uses the winston logging library.

Feature availability

All logging options described in this document (except Log streaming) are available on:

  • n8n Cloud: All plans

  • Self-hosted: All editions

Log streaming is available on:

  • n8n Cloud: Enterprise

  • Self-hosted: Enterprise

How do I set up logging in n8n?

To set up logging in n8n, you need to set the following environment variables (you can also set the values in the configuration file)

Setting in the configuration file
Using environment variables
Description

n8n.log.level

N8N_LOG_LEVEL

The log output level. The available options (from lowest to highest level) are error, warn, info, and debug. The default value is info. Refer to Log levels for more about these options.

n8n.log.output

N8N_LOG_OUTPUT

Where to output logs. The available options are console and file. Multiple values can be used separated by a comma (,). console is used by default.

n8n.log.file.location

N8N_LOG_FILE_LOCATION

The log file location, used only if log output is set to file. By default, <n8nFolderPath>/logs/n8n.log is used.

n8n.log.file.fileSizeMax

N8N_LOG_FILE_SIZE_MAX

The maximum size (in MB) for each log file. By default, n8n uses 16 MB.

n8n.log.file.fileCountMax

N8N_LOG_FILE_COUNT_MAX

The maximum number of log files to keep. The default value is 100. This value should be set when using workers.

# Set the logging level to 'debug' <a href="#set-the-logging-level-to-debug" id="set-the-logging-level-to-debug"></a>
export N8N_LOG_LEVEL=debug

# Set log output to both console and a log file <a href="#set-log-output-to-both-console-and-a-log-file" id="set-log-output-to-both-console-and-a-log-file"></a>
export N8N_LOG_OUTPUT=console,file

# Set a save location for the log file <a href="#set-a-save-location-for-the-log-file" id="set-a-save-location-for-the-log-file"></a>
export N8N_LOG_FILE_LOCATION=/home/jim/n8n/logs/n8n.log

# Set a 50 MB maximum size for each log file <a href="#set-a-50-mb-maximum-size-for-each-log-file" id="set-a-50-mb-maximum-size-for-each-log-file"></a>
export N8N_LOG_FILE_SIZE_MAX=50

# Set 60 as the maximum number of log files to be kept <a href="#set-60-as-the-maximum-number-of-log-files-to-be-kept" id="set-60-as-the-maximum-number-of-log-files-to-be-kept"></a>
export N8N_LOG_FILE_COUNT_MAX=60

Log levels

n8n uses standard log levels to report:

  • silent: outputs nothing at all

  • error: outputs only errors and nothing else

  • warn: outputs errors and warning messages

  • info: contains useful information about progress

  • debug: the most verbose output. n8n outputs a lot of information to help you debug issues.

How do I add logging during development?

During development, adding log messages is a good practice. It assists in debugging errors. To configure logging for development, follow the guide below.

Implementation details

n8n uses the LoggerProxy class, located in the workflow package. Calling the LoggerProxy.init() by passing in an instance of Logger, initializes the class before the usage.

The initialization process happens only once. The start.ts file already does this process for you. If you are creating a new command from scratch, you need to initialize the LoggerProxy class.

Once the Logger implementation gets created in the cli package, it can be obtained by calling the getInstance convenience method from the exported module.

Check the start.ts file to learn more about how this process works.

Adding logs

Once the LoggerProxy class gets initialized in the project, you can import it to any other file and add logs.

Convenience methods are provided for all logging levels, so new logs can be added whenever needed using the format Logger.<logLevel>('<message>', ...meta), where meta represents any additional properties desired beyond message.

In the example above, we use the standard log levels described above. The message argument is a string, and meta is a data object.

When creating new loggers, some useful standards to keep in mind are:

  • Craft log messages to be as human-readable as possible. For example, always wrap names in quotes.

  • Duplicating information in the log message and metadata, like workflow name in the above example, can be useful as messages are easier to search and metadata enables easier filtering.

  • Include multiple IDs (for example, executionId, workflowId, and sessionId) throughout all logs.

  • Use node types instead of node names (or both) as this is more consistent, and so easier to search.

Are front-end logs available?

As of now, front-end logs aren't available. Using Logger or LoggerProxy would yield errors in the editor-ui package. This functionality will get implemented in the future versions.

Related resources

PreviousKeep n8n running
NextMonitor n8n

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