Writing Logs to Files in Node.js with the LogLayer

Writing logs to files is a crucial aspect of application monitoring and debugging in production environments. LogLayer is a modern, TypeScript-first logging library that provides a clean and intuitive API for structured logging. It acts as a layer on top of your favorite logging library like winston or pino, and provides a robust solution for file-based logging with several advantages. LogLayer offers automatic log file rotation based on size or time, support for log compression, batching capabilities for improved performance, flexible log formatting, and automatic cleanup of old log files. To get started with LogLayer, you need to install the necessary packages, including loglayer, @loglayer/transport-log-file-rotation, and serialize-error. You can then set up a basic file logging configuration using the LogFileRotationTransport class. LogLayer also provides several ways to enrich your logs with additional information, including using context and metadata. Context is persistent data that applies to all subsequent log entries, while metadata is one-time data that only applies to the current log entry. LogLayer also supports advanced configuration options, such as daily log rotation, size-based rotation, and performance optimization with batching. By following best practices, such as using rotation, enabling batching for high volume, and separating logs by concern, you can effectively manage file-based logging in your Node.js applications using LogLayer.