3logtxt

3logtxt is an open-source text-based logging format and reference implementation designed for lightweight, structured logging across three parallel log streams. The three streams are intended to separately record events, contextual information, and metadata, providing a separation of concerns and improving resilience to partial failures.

The project emerged from open-source discussions about portable logging formats and minimal dependencies. It is maintained by a community of contributors and has been reimplemented in multiple programming languages.

The format favors simplicity and human readability. Each line represents a single record in one of the streams. Common fields include an ISO 8601 timestamp, a log level, a message, and optional key-value pairs. Entries are designed to be parseable by standard text tools, and implementations typically support log rotation and streaming writes. A lightweight checksum or marker can be used to verify boundary integrity across streams.

Applications include application logging, system auditing, and debugging workflows where a synchronized triple-log approach can aid correlation across events, context, and metadata. The reference implementation provides a minimal API for writing to the three streams and for reading and reconstructing events.

See also: logging, structured logging, log rotation, audit log.