Log output

Dependably writes structured logs to stdout. Every event is one object on one line, ready for Elastic Stack, AWS CloudWatch Logs, Datadog, Grafana Loki, or any other line-oriented log aggregator. Nothing needs to be enabled. The only choice is the format.

There is no in-app log viewer. Logs are write-only from the application's side; retrieval and search belong to whatever aggregator your deployment already runs. What Dependably does keep and serve in-app is the Audit log, which is a record of organization events, not of application diagnostics.

Choose a format

Set the LOG_FORMAT environment variable on the container, the same way as the settings in Configuration:

Value	Use it for
json (default)	Elastic Common Schema (ECS) JSON, one object per line, for log-ingestion pipelines.
text	Human-readable console output, for interactive docker logs tailing.

Text format looks like this, with exception stack traces on the lines immediately following:

[2026-06-15 12:00:00.000 INF] Dependably.Infrastructure.FirstBootService: First boot detected — initializing instance.

The JSON fields

With LOG_FORMAT=json, each event conforms to the Elastic Common Schema:

Field	Always present	Description
@timestamp	yes	Event timestamp, ISO-8601 with offset.
log.level	yes	Verbose, Debug, Information, Warning, Error, or Fatal.
message	yes	The rendered message.
ecs.version	yes	ECS schema version.
log.logger	when set	Full type name of the logger.
trace.id, span.id	when set	Trace and span IDs from the current activity.
labels	varies	Remaining properties with string values. Sensitive values are already redacted to [REDACTED] before the formatter sees them.
metadata	varies	Remaining properties with non-string values, such as numbers.

The formatter also adds standard ECS objects such as host and process.

One event, formatted here for readability and trimmed to the fields above. Real output is a single line:

{
  "@timestamp": "2026-06-15T12:00:00.000+00:00",
  "log.level": "Warning",
  "message": "Checksum mismatch fetching hex \"jason\" \"1.4.1\".",
  "ecs.version": "9.0.0",
  "log": { "logger": "Dependably.Api.HexController" },
  "labels": { "Name": "jason", "Version": "1.4.1" }
}

What each level means

Level	Used for
Verbose	Fine-grained diagnostics.
Debug	Operational ticks, such as a stats refresh pass skipped because another instance holds the lock.
Information	Normal operational events, such as first boot.
Warning	Recoverable anomalies: upstream timeouts, checksum mismatches.
Error	Failed requests and exceptions caught at the boundary.
Fatal	Unrecoverable startup failures.

The minimum level is Information, so Verbose and Debug events are not written unless you lower it, for example with Serilog__MinimumLevel__Default=Debug. Framework logs from Microsoft and System start at Warning.

Ship them to CloudWatch

1. Run the container with the awslogs log driver (or Firelens/FluentBit) pointed at a CloudWatch log group.
2. Leave LOG_FORMAT at its json default.
3. Query the ECS fields directly in CloudWatch Logs Insights:

fields `@timestamp`, `log.level`, message, `log.logger`
| filter `log.level` = "Error"
| sort `@timestamp` desc

Ship them over OTLP

Set OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT and logs are forwarded to that collector in addition to stdout, which is always on. The records carry service.name (OTEL_SERVICE_NAME, default dependably) and deployment.environment (DEPLOYMENT_ENVIRONMENT, default unknown). Air-gapped deployments leave the endpoint unset and consume stdout only.

Metrics have their own path: see the Grafana dashboard guide.