Serilog.Sinks.Console

A simple Serilog sink that writes log events as text to STDOUT. For colored console output, check out Serilog.Sinks.Literate, which is designed for interactive use.

Getting started

To use the console sink, first install the NuGet package:

Install-Package Serilog.Sinks.Console

Then enable the sink using WriteTo.Console():

Log.Logger = new LoggerConfiguration()
    .WriteTo.Console()
    .CreateLogger();
    
Log.Information("Hello, world!");

Log events will be printed to STDOUT:

2016-07-08 12:50:51 [Information] Hello, world!

Output templates

The format of events to the console can be modified using the outputTemplate configuration parameter:

    .WriteTo.Console(
        outputTemplate: "{Timestamp:yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss} [{Level}] {Message}{NewLine}{Exception}")

The default template, shown in the example above, uses built-in properties like Timestamp and Level. Properties from events, including those attached using enrichers, can also appear in the output template.

For more compact level names, use a format such as {Level:u3} or {Level:w3} for three-character upper- or lowercase level names, respectively.

JSON output

To write JSON instead of plain text, pass an appropriate ITextFormatter to the Console() configuration method:

    .WriteTo.Console(new JsonFormatter())

Serilog.Formatting.Compact provides alternatives to the default JsonFormatter.

XML `<appSettings>` configuration

To use the console sink with the Serilog.Settings.AppSettings package, first install that package if you haven't already done so:

Install-Package Serilog.Settings.AppSettings

Instead of configuring the logger in code, call ReadFrom.AppSettings():

var log = new LoggerConfiguration()
    .ReadFrom.AppSettings()
    .CreateLogger();

In your application's App.config or Web.config file, specify the console sink assembly under the <appSettings> node:

<configuration>
  <appSettings>
    <add key="serilog:using:Console" value="Serilog.Sinks.Console" />
    <add key="serilog:write-to:Console" />

JSON `appsettings.json` configuration

To use the console sink with Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration, for example with ASP.NET Core or .NET Core, use the Serilog.Settings.Configuration package. First install that package if you have not already done so:

Install-Package Serilog.Settings.Configuration

Instead of configuring the sink directly in code, call ReadFrom.Configuration():

var configuration = new ConfigurationBuilder()
    .AddJsonFile("appsettings.json")
    .Build();

var logger = new LoggerConfiguration()
    .ReadFrom.Configuration(configuration)
    .CreateLogger();

In your appsettings.json file, under the Serilog node, :

{
  "Serilog": {
    "WriteTo": [{"Name": "Console"}]
  }
}

optical/serilog-sinks-console