avaje-simple-logger

A SLF4J Logger built primarily for use with GraalVM Native image that writes JSON structured logs to System.out. It is designed to be used by applications that will be run in K8s or Lambda.

Background

This logger has been created from the Logback JSON Encoder from avaje-logback-encoder, and turned into a SLF4J Logger, thus removing the dependency on Logback and its associated XML configuration.

How to use it

Step 1: Add the dependency

  <dependency>
    <groupId>io.avaje</groupId>
    <artifactId>avaje-simple-logger</artifactId>
    <version>0.2</version>
  </dependency>

Step 2: src/main/resources/avaje-logger.properties

Configure via adding a src/main/resources/avaje-logger.properties

## specify the default log level to use for testing
logger.defaultLogLevel=warn

## specify some default log levels
log.level.com.foo.bar=DEBUG
log.level.io.avaje=INFO

Step 3: src/test/resources/avaje-logger-test.properties

For testing, we might desire to log in a plain format rather than JSON format. We also might want to define some test specific log levels.

Add test specific configuration via src/test/resources/avaje-logger-test.properties

## for testing we desire plain format than json format
logger.format=plain

## default log level to use when running tests
logger.defaultLogLevel=INFO

## some test specific log levels
log.level.io.ebean.test.containers=TRACE
log.level.io.ebean.DDL=TRACE
#log.level.io.ebean.SQL=DEBUG
#log.level.io.ebean.TXN=DEBUG

Debugging

To debug avaje-simple-logger set the log level for io.avaje.simplelogger to DEBUG

log.level.io.avaje.simplelogger=DEBUG

If you are also using io.avaje:avaje-aws-appconfig, then you can additionally set io.avaje.config to TRACE.

log.level.io.avaje.config=TRACE

Configure

Configure the logger via main resource avaje-logger.properties and test resource avaje-logger-test.properties

## specify the default log level to use
logger.defaultLogLevel=warn

## specify to log as `json` or `plain` format (defaults to json)
#logger.format=json
logger.format=plain

## specify if the logger name is abbreviated. Values:
## - full - use the full logger name
## - short - use the class name / suffix part of the logger name after the last `.`
## - (some integer e.g. 100) - abbreviate the logger name to the target length (shorten the package names)

logger.nameTargetLength=full
logger.nameTargetLength=short
logger.nameTargetLength=100

logger.nameTargetLength=100

## specify an explicit timezone to use, defaults to using default timezone
logger.timezone=UTC

## specify an explicit timestamp format to use, defaults to ISO_OFFSET_DATE_TIME
## valid values: ISO_OFFSET_DATE_TIME, ISO_ZONED_DATE_TIME, ISO_LOCAL_DATE_TIME, ISO_DATE_TIME, ISO_INSTANT
logger.timestampPattern=ISO_OFFSET_DATE_TIME

Structured JSON - logger.format=json

By default, the log format is JSON. Example:

{
  "component":"my-application",
  "env":"dev",
  "timestamp":"2025-07-14T13:44:44.230959+12:00",
  "level":"TRACE",
  "logger":"io.avaje.config",
  "message":"load from [resource:application-test.properties]",
  "thread":"main"
}

component

A component key value is added if:

• There is a logger.component property set in avaje-logger.properties
• There is a COMPONENT environment variable set
• K8s is detected, it will be derived from the HOSTNAME environment variable

This key value is expected to represent the application component that is the source of the logs.

Examples:

## a literal value
logger.component=my-application

## uses system property `SERVICE_NAME` or environment variable `SERVICE_NAME`
logger.component=${SERVICE_NAME}

## uses system property `service.name` or environment variable `SERVICE_NAME`
logger.component=${service.name}

env - Environment

An env key value is added automatically if:

• There is a logger.environment property set in avaje-logger.properties
• There is an ENVIRONMENT environment variable set

Examples:

## uses system property `app.env` or environment variable `APP_ENV`, defaults to `localdev`
logger.environment=${app.env:localdev}

## literal value
logger.environment=DEV

Dynamic log level configuration

avaje-simple-logger automatically registers with avaje-config such that any configuration changes that start with log.level. are logging level configuration changes, and these are applied.

avaje-config supports plugins like AWS AppConfig, where configuration changes can be dynamically made to the application. For example, log.level. changes can be dynamically made this way.

Don't need dynamic configuration?

If an application does not need dynamic configuration, then we can just use avaje-simple-json-logger. This excludes the avaje-config dependency.

  <dependency>
    <groupId>io.avaje</groupId>
    <artifactId>avaje-simple-json-logger</artifactId>
    <version>0.2</version>
  </dependency>

Note that log levels can still be modified programmatically via:

Map<String, String> nameLevels = new HashMap<>();
nameLevels.put("com.foo", "debug");
nameLevels.put("com.foo.bar", "info");
...
LoggerContext.get().putAll(nameLevels);