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sirupsen/logrus

📈 Trending★ 25,725GoAudience · developerComplexity · 2/5ActiveLicenseSetup · easy

TLDR

A structured logging library for Go that adds labeled fields to log messages, making them easier to search and analyze in production systems.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((logrus))
    What it does
      Structured logging
      Log levels
      JSON output
    Features
      Colored terminal output
      Custom hooks
      Field attachment
    Use cases
      Backend services
      Production logging
      Log aggregation
    Tech stack
      Go
      JSON format
      Logstash compatible

Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Track user IDs and actions in backend service logs to debug production issues faster.

USE CASE 2

Format logs as JSON for ingestion into log aggregation tools like Logstash or Splunk.

USE CASE 3

Attach structured fields like query duration and server name to understand service performance.

USE CASE 4

Route logs to external monitoring services using custom hooks for alerting and analysis.

Tech stack

Go

Getting it running

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min
Use freely for any purpose, including commercial use, as long as you keep the copyright notice.

In plain English

Logrus is a logging library for Go (a programming language commonly used for backend services). Its main purpose is to make log messages more useful by adding structured data to them, instead of just writing a plain text message like "something failed," you attach labeled fields such as the user ID, the action being attempted, and the error code. This makes logs far easier to search and analyze later. It works by replacing Go's built-in logger with a drop-in alternative that supports log levels (debug, info, warning, error, fatal), colored output in the terminal during development, and JSON-formatted output in production, which is the format preferred by log aggregation tools like Logstash or Splunk. Plugins called "hooks" let you route logs to external services or additional outputs. You would use Logrus when building a Go backend service that needs production-quality logging, for example, tracking which user triggered a bug, how long a database query took, or which server processed a request. It's popular in Go codebases because it requires minimal changes to adopt. Note that Logrus is now in maintenance mode, meaning only security and bug fixes are accepted; new Go projects may prefer newer alternatives like Zerolog or Zap.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
Show me how to set up Logrus in a Go service and log a message with structured fields like user_id and action.
Prompt 2
How do I configure Logrus to output JSON in production and colored text during local development?
Prompt 3
Write a Logrus hook that sends error-level logs to an external monitoring service.
Prompt 4
How do I add request tracing fields to every log in a Go HTTP handler using Logrus?
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Generated 2026-05-18 · Model: sonnet-4-6 · Verify against the repo before relying on details.