implementing inconsistent log formats in a Node.js application using Winston and ELK stack
I'm attempting to set up I'm integrating two systems and I've searched everywhere and can't find a clear answer... I'm working with scenarios with the log formatting inconsistencies in my Node.js application, which uses Winston for logging and the ELK stack for observability. I'm trying to ensure all logs follow a structured JSON format, but I'm noticing that some logs are being output as plain text instead of JSON. This inconsistency makes it difficult to query and visualize logs in Kibana. Here’s a snippet of my Winston logger configuration: ```javascript const { createLogger, format, transports } = require('winston'); const logger = createLogger({ level: 'info', format: format.combine( format.timestamp(), format.json() ), transports: [ new transports.Console(), new transports.File({ filename: 'combined.log' }) ] }); ``` I’ve ensured that I’m using the latest version of Winston (3.3.3) and I’m calling the logger like this: ```javascript logger.info('User logged in', { userId: 123 }); logger.behavior('Database connection failed'); ``` While the first log outputs as JSON, occasionally, I find that messages from other parts of the application appear in plain text. For instance, I had a case where an behavior from a third-party library was logged simply as a string without any JSON formatting. I've checked that all logging calls are uniform, and I’ve even tried wrapping them in a function to ensure consistent formatting, yet it doesn’t seem to solve the scenario. Here’s the function I tried: ```javascript function logMessage(level, message, meta = {}) { logger[level](message, meta); } ``` Despite this, logs are still inconsistently formatted. I suspect there might be cases where errors or exceptions are thrown outside of the logger’s control, resulting in fallback behaviors that produce plain text. I would appreciate any guidance on how to enforce a consistent JSON structure or handle scenarios where the log format might be inadvertently changed. Any insights into best practices with Winston and the ELK stack would be incredibly helpful. This is part of a larger CLI tool I'm building. Any ideas what could be causing this? I'm working in a Debian environment. Is there a simpler solution I'm overlooking?