Project: Tetragon (Provisioning / Security & Compliance)
File: TMP-LOGGING.md

Logging Guidelines ================== controller-runtime uses a kind of logging called structured logging. If you've used a library like Zap or logrus before, you'll be familiar with the concepts we use. If you've only used a logging library like the "log" package (in the Go standard library) or "glog" (in Kubernetes), you'll need to adjust how you think about logging a bit. With structured logging, we associate a constant log message with some variable key-value pairs. For instance, suppose we wanted to log that we were starting reconciliation on a pod. In the Go standard library logger, we might write: ```go log.Printf("starting reconciliation for pod %s/%s", podNamespace, podName) ``` In controller-runtime, we'd instead write: ```go logger.Info("starting reconciliation", "pod", req.NamespacedName) ``` or even write ```go func (r *Reconciler) Reconcile(req reconcile.Request) (reconcile.Response, error) { logger := logger.WithValues("pod", req.NamespacedName) // do some stuff logger.Info("starting reconciliation") } ``` Notice how we've broken out the information that we want to convey into a constant message (`"starting reconciliation"`) and some key-value pairs that convey variable information (`"pod", req.NamespacedName`). We've there-by added "structure" to our logs, which makes them easier to save and search later, as well as correlate with metrics and events. All of controller-runtime's logging is done via , a generic interface for structured logging. You can use whichever logging library you want to implement the actual mechanics of the logging. controller-runtime provides some helpers to make it easy to use as the implementation. You can configure the logging implementation using `"sigs.k8s.io/controller-runtime/pkg/log".SetLogger`. That package also contains the convenience functions for setting up Zap. You can get a handle to the "root" logger using `"sigs.k8s.io/controller-runtime/pkg/log".Log`, and can then call `WithName` to create individual named loggers. You can call `WithName` repeatedly to chain names together: ```go logger := log.Log.WithName("controller").WithName("replicaset") // in reconcile... logger = logger.WithValues("replicaset", req.NamespacedName) // later on in reconcile... logger.Info("doing things with pods", "pod", newPod) ``` As seen above, you can also call `WithValue` to create a new sub-logger that always attaches some key-value pairs to a logger. Finally, you can use `V(1)` to mark a particular log line as "debug" logs: ```go logger.V(1).Info("this is particularly verbose!", "state of the world", allKubernetesObjectsEverywhere) ``` While it's possible to use higher log levels, it's recommended that you stick with `V(1)` or `V(0)` (which is equivalent to not specifying `V`), and then filter later based on key-value pairs or messages; different numbers tend to lose meaning easily over time, and you'll be left wondering why particular logs lines are at `V(5)` instead of `V(7)`. Errors should always be logged with

which allows logr implementations to provide special handling of errors (for instance, providing stack traces in debug mode). It's acceptable to log call `log.Error` with a nil error object. This conveys that an error occurred in some capacity, but that no actual `error` object was involved. Errors returned by the `Reconcile` implementation of the `Reconciler` interface are commonly logged as a `Reconciler error`. It's a developer choice to create an additional error log in the `Reconcile` implementation so a more specific file name and line for the error are returned. Don't put variable content in your messages -- use key-value pairs for that. Never use `fmt.Sprintf` in your message. Try to match the terminology in your messages with your key-value pairs -- for instance, if you have a key-value pairs `api version`, use the term `APIVersion` instead of `GroupVersion` in your message. Kubernetes objects should be logged directly, like `log.Info("this is a Kubernetes object", "pod", somePod)`. controller-runtime provides a special encoder for Zap that will transform Kubernetes objects into `name, namespace, apiVersion, kind` objects, when available and not in development mode. Other logr implementations should implement similar logic. Use lower-case, space separated keys. For example `object` for objects, `api version` for `APIVersion` Be consistent across your application, and with controller-runtime when possible. Try to be brief but descriptive. Match terminology in keys with terminology in the message. Be careful logging non-Kubernetes objects verbatim if they're very large. Kinds should not be logged alone (they're meaningless alone). Use a `GroupKind` object to log them instead, or a `GroupVersionKind` when version is relevant. If you need to log an API version string, use `api version` as the key (formatted as with a `GroupVersion`, or as received directly from API discovery). If code works with a generic Kubernetes `runtime.Object`, use the `object` key. For specific objects, prefer the resource name as the key (e.g. `pod` for `v1.Pod` objects). For non-Kubernetes objects, the `object` key may also be used, if you accept a generic interface. When logging a raw type, log it using the `type` key, with a value of `fmt.Sprintf("%T", typ)` If there's specific context around a type, the key may be more specific, but should end with `type` -- for instance, `OwnerType` should be logged as `owner` in the context of `log.Error(err, "Could not get ObjectKinds for OwnerType", `owner type`, fmt.Sprintf("%T"))`. When possible, favor communicating kind instead. When logging multiple things, simply pluralize the key. Reconcile requests should be logged as `request`, although normal code should favor logging the key. Reconcile keys should be logged as with the same key as if you were logging the object directly (e.g. `log.Info("reconciling pod", "pod", req.NamespacedName)`). This ends up having a similar effect to logging the object directly.