Blog posts by Karl StÃ¥lenheim2025-11-12T12:42:53.0000000Zhttps://world.optimizely.com/blogs/karl-stalenheim/Optimizely WorldUsing Serilog in DXP<p><strong>TL;DR</strong> Use <em>Serilog.Sinks.Console</em> for DXP apps — or skip Serilog entirely and rely on default logging.</p>
<hr />
<p>It’s common during investigations that all the downloadable logs from the PaaS portal are empty.</p>
<p>In most cases, this happens because Serilog is used and configured to only write logs to files. While that works locally or in traditional hosting environments, it doesn’t play well with how Optimizely DXP handles logs.</p>
<p>What’s important to understand (maybe not clearly defined in <a href="https://docs.developers.optimizely.com/digital-experience-platform/docs/logging">documentation</a>) is that the logs available in the PaaS Portal are <strong>App Service Console Logs</strong> and not file-based logs.</p>
<h2>Implementing Serilog for Both Development and DXP</h2>
<p>Below is an example of how the <em>Program </em>class can look. It uses a <a href="https://github.com/serilog/serilog-aspnetcore?tab=readme-ov-file#two-stage-initialization"><strong>bootstrap logger</strong></a> during startup which ensures that logging is available even before the host is fully built, while still letting Serilog load its settings from configuration later on.</p>
<pre class="language-csharp"><code>public class Program
{
public static void Main(string[] args)
{
Log.Logger = new LoggerConfiguration()
.MinimumLevel.Override("Microsoft", LogEventLevel.Information)
.WriteTo.Console()
.CreateBootstrapLogger();
CreateHostBuilder(args).Build().Run();
}
public static IHostBuilder CreateHostBuilder(string[] args) =>
Host.CreateDefaultBuilder(args)
.ConfigureCmsDefaults()
.UseSerilog((context, services, configuration) =>
{
configuration
.ReadFrom.Configuration(context.Configuration)
.ReadFrom.Services(services)
.Enrich.FromLogContext();
})
.ConfigureWebHostDefaults(webBuilder =>
{
webBuilder.UseStartup<Startup>();
});
}</code></pre>
<p>This setup requires the NuGet packages <em>Serilog</em>, <em>Serilog.AspNetCore</em> and <em>Serilog.Sinks.Console</em> are installed.</p>
<h3>Configuration for Development</h3>
<p>In development, you might want to see logs both in the console and written to a local file for troubleshooting.</p>
<p>Your <em>appsettings.Development.json</em> could look like this:</p>
<pre class="language-javascript"><code>{
"Serilog": {
"Using": ["Serilog.Sinks.Console", "Serilog.Sinks.File"],
"MinimumLevel": {
"Default": "Information",
"Override": {
"Microsoft": "Warning",
"EPiServer": "Information",
"EPiServer.Commerce": "Warning",
"Microsoft.Hosting.Lifetime": "Warning",
"MySite.SomeNamespace": "Information"
}
},
"WriteTo": [
{ "Name": "Console" },
{
"Name": "File",
"Args": {
"path": "app_data/log.txt",
"rollingInterval": "Day",
"retainedFileCountLimit": 10
}
}
]
}
}</code></pre>
<p>This configuration assumes the package <em>Serilog.Sinks.File</em> is installed.</p>
<h3>Configuration for DXP</h3>
<p>Logs written to the <strong>console</strong> are captured as <strong>App Service Console Logs</strong>. These are the logs visible in the DXP portal.</p>
<p>For DXP, you can simplify and optimize Serilog by only using the console sink, optionally wrapped in an async sink which may or may not improve performance. This is how <em>appsettings.<ENV>.json</em> could look like:</p>
<pre class="language-javascript"><code>{
"Serilog": {
"Using": ["Serilog.Sinks.Async", "Serilog.Sinks.Console"],
"MinimumLevel": {
"Default": "Warning",
"Override": {
"Microsoft": "Warning",
"EPiServer": "Warning",
"EPiServer.Commerce": "Warning",
"Microsoft.Hosting.Lifetime": "Information",
"MySite.SomeNamespace": "Information"
}
},
"WriteTo": [
{
"Name": "Async",
"Args": {
"configure": [
{ "Name": "Console" }
]
}
}
]
}
}
</code></pre>
<p>The configuration assumes that <em>Serilog.Sinks.Async</em> and <em>Serilog.Sinks.Console </em>are installed.</p>
<hr />
<p>With this setup, you can enjoy all the benefits of Serilog’s structured logging while ensuring that logs are still captured correctly in Optimizely DXP.</p>2025-11-12T12:42:53.0000000ZBlog post