axelson / timber-ruby

🌲 Great Ruby logging made easy.

🌲 Timber - Great Ruby Logging Made Easy

Timber for Ruby is a drop in replacement for your Ruby logger that unobtrusively augments your logs with rich metadata and context making them easier to search, use, and read. It pairs with the Timber console to deliver a tailored Ruby logging experience designed to make you more productive.

1. Installation - One command: bundle exec timber install
2. Usage - Simple & powerful API
3. Integrations - Automatic context and metadata for your existing logs
4. The Timber Console - Designed for applications & developers
5. Get things done with your logs 💪

Installation

1. In your Gemfile, add the timber gem:

   gem 'timber', '~> 2.3'

2. In your shell, run:

   bundle install && bundle exec timber install
   

Usage

Basic logging

Use the Timber::Logger just like you would ::Logger:

logger.debug("Debug message")
logger.info("Info message")
logger.warn("Warn message")
logger.error("Error message")
logger.fatal("Fatal message")

• Search it with queries like: error message
• Alert on it with threshold based alerts
• View this event's metadata and context

...read more in our docs

---

Logging events (structured data)

Log structured data without sacrificing readability:

logger.warn "Payment rejected", payment_rejected: {customer_id: "abcd1234", amount: 100, reason: "Card expired"}

• Search it with queries like: type:payment_rejected or payment_rejected.amount:>100
• Alert on it with threshold based alerts
• View this event's data and context

...read more in our docs

---

Setting context

Add shared structured data across your logs:

Timber.with_context(job: {id: 123}) do
  logger.info("Background job execution started")
  # ... code here
  logger.info("Background job execution completed")
end

• Search it with queries like: job.id:123
• View this context when viewing a log's metadata

...read more in our docs

---

Metrics, Timings, & Tracing

Time code blocks:

timer = Timber.start_timer
# ... code to time ...
logger.info("Processed background job", background_job: {time_ms: timer})

Log generic metrics:

logger.info("Credit card charged", credit_card_charge: {amount: 123.23})

• Search it with queries like: background_job.time_ms:>500
• Alert on it with threshold based alerts
• View this log's metadata in the console

...read more in our docs

Configuration

Below are a few popular configuration options, for a comprehensive list, see Timber::Config.

Logrageify. Silence noisy logs.

Silence noisy logs that aren't of value to you, just like lograge:

# config/initializers/timber.rb
Timber.config.logrageify!()

It turns this:

Started GET "/" for 127.0.0.1 at 2012-03-10 14:28:14 +0100
Processing by HomeController#index as HTML
  Rendered text template within layouts/application (0.0ms)
  Rendered layouts/_assets.html.erb (2.0ms)
  Rendered layouts/_top.html.erb (2.6ms)
  Rendered layouts/_about.html.erb (0.3ms)
  Rendered layouts/_google_analytics.html.erb (0.4ms)
Completed 200 OK in 79ms (Views: 78.8ms | ActiveRecord: 0.0ms)

Into this:

Get "/" sent 200 OK in 79ms

Pro-tip: Keep controller call logs (recommended)

Feel free to deviate and customize which logs you silence. We recommend a slight deviation from lograge with the following settings:

# config/initializers/timber.rb

Timber.config.integrations.action_view.silence = true
Timber.config.integrations.active_record.silence = true
Timber.config.integrations.rack.http_events.collapse_into_single_event = true

This does not silence the controller call log event. This is because Timber captures the parameters passed to the controller, which are generally valuable when debugging.

For a full list of integration settings, see Timber::Config::Integrations

---

Silence specific requests (LB health checks, etc)

Silencing noisy requests can be helpful for silencing load balance health checks, bot scanning, or activity that generally is not meaningful to you. The following will silence all [GET] /_health requests:

# config/initializers/timber.rb

Timber.config.integrations.rack.http_events.silence_request = lambda do |rack_env, rack_request|
  rack_request.path == "/_health"
end

We require a block because it gives you complete control over how you want to silence requests. The first parameter being the traditional Rack env hash, the second being a Rack Request object.

---

Capture custom user context

By default Timber automatically captures user context for most of the popular authentication libraries (Devise, and Clearance). See Timber::Integrations::Rack::UserContext for a complete list.

In cases where you Timber doesn't support your strategy, or you want to customize it further, you can do so like:

# config/initializers/timber.rb

Timber.config.integrations.rack.user_context.custom_user_hash = lambda do |rack_env|
  user = rack_env['warden'].user
  if user
    {
      id: user.id, # unique identifier for the user, can be an integer or string,
      name: user.name, # identifiable name for the user,
      email: user.email, # user's email address
    }
  else
    nil
  end
end

All of the user hash keys are optional, but you must provide at least one.

---

Capture release / deploy context

Timber::Contexts::Release tracks the current application release and version.

If you're on Heroku, simply enable the dyno metadata feature. If you are not, set the following environment variables and this context will be added automatically:

1. RELEASE_COMMIT - Ex: 2c3a0b24069af49b3de35b8e8c26765c1dba9ff0
2. RELEASE_CREATED_AT - Ex: 2015-04-02T18:00:42Z
3. RELEASE_VERSION - Ex: v2.3.1

All variables are optional, but at least one must be present.

---

Integrations

Timber integrates with popular frameworks and libraries to capture context and metadata you couldn't otherwise. This automatically augments logs produced by these libraries, making them easier to search and use. Below is a list of libraries we support:

• Frameworks & Libraries
  • Rails
  • Rack
  • Devise
  • Clearance
  • Warden
• Platforms
  • Heroku
  • System / Server

...more coming soon! Make a request by opening an issue

Get things done with your logs

Logging features designed to help developers get more done:

1. Powerful searching. - Find what you need faster.
2. Live tail users. - Easily solve customer issues.
3. View logs per HTTP request. - See the full story without the noise.
4. Inspect HTTP request parameters. - Quickly reproduce issues.
5. Threshold based alerting. - Know when things break.
6. ...and more! Checkout our the Timber application docs

The Timber Console

Learn more about our app.

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