As part of moving to a new logging stack, our team @ Pura did a lot of work to improve how we were logging to add more insightful information as well as reduce the log data ingested by the new system.

To do this, followed many patterns that helped, including being more scrutinous with which log levels we were using, formatting more logs as JSON, and integrating other tools that could help us collect metrics.

One pattern I brought to the table, and one that I have since stuck to while writing new services, was ‘dispositional logging’.

What is it?

Dispositional logging is a logging pattern meant to improve logs created by event driven services. It takes advantage using the correct log levels, formatting logs as JSON, and language specific features for processing batches of events.

Consider for a moment a call center.