LogStructor

The Problem: Your Logs Are Useless

Try finding anything in this mess:

2025-01-08 10:30:45 INFO: User alice from 192.168.1.100 failed login attempt 3
2025-01-08 10:31:12 INFO: Processing order for customer 456 amount $99.99
2025-01-08 10:31:45 ERROR: Database connection timeout after 30 seconds
2025-01-08 10:32:01 INFO: Order ORD-789 completed successfully

Now ask yourself: Which user experienced the database timeout? How many failed logins did alice have today? Which orders failed due to timeouts?

With unstructured text logs, you can't easily answer any of these questions. You can’t search, filter, or analyze them in a meaningful way.

The Solution: Few Lines of Code

import logstructor

logger = logstructor.getLogger(__name__)
logger.info("Login failed", user_id="alice", ip="192.168.1.100", attempt=3)

Result:

{
  "timestamp": "2025-01-08T10:30:45Z",
  "level": "INFO",
  "message": "Login failed",
  "context": {
    "user_id": "alice",
    "ip": "192.168.1.100",
    "attempt": 3
  }
}

Now you can actually search your logs in ELK, Splunk, or any log aggregator:

# Find all of alice's actions across all services
user_id:"alice"

# Find users with multiple failed attempts (security alert!)
attempt:>2

# Complex queries become possible
user_id:"alice" AND level:"ERROR" AND timestamp:[now-1h TO now]

Before: Grep through gigabytes of text files ❌
After: Instant search and filtering ✅

Get Started

Installing and using LogStructor is simple:

pip install logstructor

Replace the standard logger:

import logstructor

logger = logstructor.getLogger(__name__)
logger.info("Hello structured world", excited=True)

That’s it — structured logs with context, ready for debugging and monitoring.

Why Developers Love It

1. Works in 30 seconds

import logstructor

logger = logstructor.getLogger(__name__)
# Done. You're logging structured data.

2. Context that actually works

# Set once per request
logstructor.bind_context(request_id="req-123", user_id=456)

# Every log automatically includes request_id and user_id
logger.info("Started processing")
logger.info("Validation passed")
logger.error("Database timeout")
logger.info("Request completed")

# Clean up
logstructor.clear_context()

Works with async/await:

async def handle_request():
    logstructor.bind_context(request_id="req-123")
    
    await authenticate_user()  # Context preserved across await
    logger.info("User authenticated")
    
    await process_data()       # Still has request_id
    logger.info("Processing complete")

3. Drop-in replacement

# Your existing code works unchanged
logger.info("Server started")
logger.error("Connection failed", exc_info=True)

# Just add structure when you want it
logger.info("Server started", port=8080, workers=4)
logger.error("Connection failed", host="db.example.com", timeout=30)

Production Ready

Feature	Benefit
🔒 Thread-safe	Works perfectly in multi-threaded web apps
⚡ Async-ready	Full support for async/await with contextvars
📦 Zero dependencies	No supply chain attacks, no version conflicts
⚡ High performance	Minimal overhead over standard logging
🛡️ Battle-tested	Running in production handling millions of requests

Why Not structlog?

structlog is fantastic for complex logging pipelines, but it requires learning a completely new API and philosophy. LogStructor takes a different approach:

Aspect	LogStructor	structlog
Learning curve	Zero - uses standard logging API	Steep - new concepts and API
Migration effort	Drop-in replacement	Rewrite all logging calls
Dependencies	Zero	Multiple (including optional ones)
Complexity	Minimal - just structured fields	High - processors, contextvars, etc.
Use case	80% of structured logging needs	Complex logging architectures

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🚀 Stop fighting your logs. Start using them.