logty

Logty is a term used to describe a standardized approach to structured logging in distributed software systems. It is a conceptual framework rather than a single technology, aimed at producing, transmitting, and querying log data in a consistent format. In common usage, a logty entry includes a fixed set of fields such as timestamp, level, message, logger, service, host, and a metadata object that carries contextual information. Additional fields frequently seen with logty are trace_id, span_id, user_id, request_id, and environment to support cross-service traceability.

The core idea of logty is to replace unstructured text logs with machine-readable records that can be efficiently indexed and correlated. This enables reliable filtering, aggregation, and search across large, multi-service deployments. A typical logty-based workflow involves emitting logs through a lightweight library, formatting them in the logty schema, and routing them to pluggable backends such as console output, log files, or cloud-based log services. An optional indexing or search layer can support queries by time range, severity level, service, or specific context fields.

Logty is often discussed in the context of observability and debugging best practices, and it is commonly used in educational or hypothetical scenarios to illustrate structured logging concepts. It does not represent a formal industry standard, and teams may implement variations that align with their existing tooling and requirements.

See also: structured logging, JSON logging, observability, OpenTelemetry.