Logging Payload API Requests

58bits

last month

34

• 

  thisisnotchris

  last month

  @58bits Good question - I wonder if Pino's config can be extended to catch the missing requests?

  
  

  
  

  I know the default level is "info", how about debug or trace?

  
  

  
  

  If that exposes the payload requests, you could check the level of those and add a custom logging level

  
  

  
  

  That's my best guess, I'll keep my eye open for other possibilities, though another community member or a team member may have more insight

• 

  58bits

  last month

  Hi! @thisisnotchris I've tried debug and trace but those don't add request logging.

  
  

  
  

  For context - we use CloudWatch Logs Insights extensively with all of our deployed APIs (typically with custom 'topic' properties in log messages), and if we were to deploy Payload CMS to AWS we'd ideally like to do the same.

• 

  thisisnotchris

  last month

  Hmm

  
  

  
  

  @58bits Did you say you tried to add a middleware to express, prior to Payload?

• 

  58bits

  last month

  No not yet.

• 

  thisisnotchris

  last month

  const requestLoggerMiddleware = ({ logger }) => (req, res, next) => {
    console.log('Should run on every request')
    next();
  };

  
  

  
  

  app.use(requestLoggerMiddleware)

• 

  58bits

  last month

  Thanks - yup - was about to try that.

• 

  thisisnotchris

  last month

  Hopefully that exposes all the requests!

  
  

  
  

  Let us know

• 

  58bits

  last month

  @thisisnotchris close....

  
  

  
  

  const requestLoggerMiddleware =
    ({ logger }) =>
    (req, res, next) => {
      logger.info(`request: ${req.method} ${req.url}`)
      next()
    }
  
  const start = async () => {
    // Initialize Payload
    await payload.init({
      secret: process.env.PAYLOAD_SECRET,
      mongoURL: process.env.MONGODB_URI,
      express: app,
      loggerOptions: {
        level: 'debug',
      },
      onInit: async () => {
        payload.logger.info(`Payload Admin URL: ${payload.getAdminURL()}`)
      },
    })
  
    app.use(requestLoggerMiddleware({ logger: payload.logger }))
  
    // Add your own express routes here
  
    app.listen(process.env.PORT, async () => {
      payload.logger.info(`Server listening on port ${process.env.PORT}`)
    })
  }
  
  start()

• 

  thisisnotchris

  last month

  Ooooo

• 

  58bits

  last month

  I can pass in a configured instance of payload - but for any route that matches the payload runtime, the middleware will not log the request

  
  

  
  

  for example if I pass an API request to

  /api/foo

  (not a payload collection) then I

  will

  get a middleware logged request - since express is handling this route now

  
  

  
  

  So I suspect Payload needs to decide if it's going to log its own handled requests.

• 

  thisisnotchris

  last month

  Hmmm

  
  

  
  

  @jacobsfletch Any ideas on how they could get some extended logging?

• 

  jacobsfletch

  Payload Team

  last month

  @58bits @notchris Using custom middleware is the right approach here but I think you need to define it at the

  router

  level, like this:

  
  
  

  import express from "express";
  import payload from "payload";
  
  const app = express();
  
  const start = async () => {
    // Initialize Payload
    await payload.init({
      secret: process.env.PAYLOAD_SECRET,
      mongoURL: process.env.MONGODB_URI,
      express: app,
      loggerOptions: {
        level: 'debug',
      },
      onInit: async () => {
        payload.logger.info(`Payload Admin URL: ${payload.getAdminURL()}`)
      },
    })
  
    const router = express.Router();
  
    router.use(requestLoggerMiddleware({ logger: payload.logger });
  
    app.listen(process.env.PORT, async () => {
      payload.logger.info(`Server listening on port ${process.env.PORT}`)
    })
  }
  
  start()

• 

  58bits

  last month

  @jacobsfletch @thisisnotchris <plays sad trombone> - sorry Jacob but this didn't work either. Highly likely I'm doing something wrong here, as we're not very familiar with Express (we're a Fastify shop).

• 

  denolfe

  Payload Team

  last month

  It appears this is an undocumented feature but might work for you - You could try sending in some logging middleware into

  preMiddleware

  in your Payload config via the

  express

  options

  
  

  
  

  postMiddleware

  is available as well

  
• 

  58bits

  last month

  @denolfe thanks a bunch - will give it a try. Was also going to

  guess

  that Payload's middleware / handlers are not calling

  next()

  - and so we might try registering our own logger middleware

  before

  payload.

• 

  denolfe

  Payload Team

  last month

  It all depends on if you want to use Payload's pino logger instance or not

• 

  58bits

  last month

  Understood. Thanks @denolfe @jacobsfletch @thisisnotchris - as per Elliot's suggestions, this works...

  
  

  Middleware:

  
  

  const requestLoggerMiddleware = (req, res, next) => {
    req.payload.logger.info(`request: ${req.method} ${req.url}`)
    next()
  }

  
  

  And then in

  payload.config.ts
  

   express: {
      preMiddleware: [requestLoggerMiddleware],
    },

• 

  denolfe

  Payload Team

  last month

  Beautiful! 🙌

  
  

  
  

  Also heads up on json logging w/ Pino (especially if querying in cloudwatch). If you want to have more json properties, you'll want to log an object w/

  msg

  property for the message. Multiple parameters didn't appear to pass to json properly despite the TS type saying so.

  
  
  req.payload.logger.info({ msg: 'my message', method: req.method, url: req.url})
• 

  58bits

  last month

  @denolfe - thanks - and yup - that's how we're doing it in production with a topic top level property, followed by the payload / params.

  
  

  
  

  and so we would probably do something like this ( although it's late here, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

  
  req.payload.logger.info({ payload_request: { method: req.method, url: req.url } })
• 

  denolfe

  Payload Team

  last month

  For anyone stumbling upon this thread, the mentioned custom middleware above is now documented here:

  https://payloadcms.com/docs/configuration/express#custom-middleware