Go: Configure logs in context | New Relic Documentation

Logs in context for the Go agent connects your logs and APM data in New Relic. Bringing all of this data together in a single tool helps you quickly get to the root cause of an issue and find the log lines that you need to identify and resolve a problem.

Set up your Go app

To enable logs in context for APM apps monitored by Go, you can use our manual installation option.

Make sure you have already set up logging in New Relic. This includes configuring a supported log forwarder that collects your application logs and extends the metadata that is forwarded to New Relic.
Install or update to the latest Go agent version, and enable distributed tracing. Use Go agent version 2.12 or higher for logs in context.
Install the Logrus logging framework version 1.4.0 or higher to enrich your log data.
Configure logs in context for Go using the Logrus extension.

Import the following packages in files where Logrus is configured:
```
import (
    log "github.com/sirupsen/logrus"
    "github.com/newrelic/go-agent/v3/integrations/logcontext/nrlogrusplugin"
    "github.com/newrelic/go-agent/v3/newrelic"
)
```
Set the Logrus formatter to nrlogrusplugin.ContextFormatter:
```
logger := log.New()
logger.SetFormatter(nrlogrusplugin.ContextFormatter{})
```
OR
If you're using the Logrus standard logger:
```
log.SetFormatter(nrlogrusplugin.ContextFormatter{})
```
The logger will now look for a newrelic.Transaction inside its context and decorate logs accordingly.
Update your standard logging call to include contextual logging, and pass this to the logger.
For example, instead of logger.Info("Hello New Relic!"), use
```
ctx := newrelic.NewContext(context.Background(), txn)
logger.WithContext(ctx).Info("Hello New Relic!")
```
where txn is the current running transaction.

To verify that you have configured the log appender correctly, run your application, then check your logs data in New Relic using the query operator has:span.id has:trace.id.

If everything is configured correctly and your data is being forwarded to New Relic with the enriched metadata, your logs should now be emitted as JSON and contain trace.id and span.id fields. If you don't see log data in the UI, follow the troubleshooting procedures.

What's next?

After you set up APM logs in context, make the most of your logging data:

Explore the logging data across your platform with our Logs UI.
See your logs in context of your app's performance in the APM UI. Troubleshoot errors with distributed tracing, stack traces, application logs, and more.
Get deeper visibility into both your application and your platform performance data by forwarding your logs with our infrastructure monitoring agent. Review your infrastructure logs in the UI.
Set up alerts.
Query your data and create dashboards.