Summary
Expand the built-in log format library from 19 formats to cover more common log sources.
Problem
nless currently auto-detects 19 log formats. lnav ships with 70+. More built-in formats means more "it just works" moments where users pipe in logs and get instant columnar parsing.
Candidate formats to add
- Databases: MySQL slow query, PostgreSQL, Redis, MongoDB
- Web servers: Caddy, HAProxy, AWS ALB/ELB
- Cloud: AWS CloudTrail, GCP audit logs
- Containers: Docker daemon logs, containerd
- CI/CD: GitHub Actions, Jenkins
- Languages: Java (log4j2 patterns), Rust tracing, Go structured logging (zerolog, zap)
- System: journald, macOS unified logging, Windows Event Log (exported)
- Network: Bro/Zeek TSV
Technical Considerations
- Each format is a named regex with capture groups in
logformats.py
- Priority scoring ensures the most specific format wins
- Community contributions welcome — format definitions are self-contained
- Consider supporting a user-contributed format registry
Related
- Existing formats defined in
nless/logformats.py
P key for manual log format selection
Summary
Expand the built-in log format library from 19 formats to cover more common log sources.
Problem
nless currently auto-detects 19 log formats. lnav ships with 70+. More built-in formats means more "it just works" moments where users pipe in logs and get instant columnar parsing.
Candidate formats to add
Technical Considerations
logformats.pyRelated
nless/logformats.pyPkey for manual log format selection