FAQ¶

Does CipherLogger replace Winston/Pino?¶

Not really — they solve different problems. Winston and Pino are general-purpose logging backends (transports, serialization, log shipping). CipherLogger is focused specifically on HTTP request logging: it defines a fixed request schema and wires itself into your framework's request lifecycle. You can absolutely pipe CipherLogger's output into Winston or Pino as a transport if you need structured log shipping — CipherLogger doesn't do that itself today.

Why is duration wrong in my Next.js logs?¶

This is expected with the current Next.js adapter — see the timing caveat. Middleware runs before your route handler, so the adapter can only measure its own execution time, not the full response. A fix (route-handler wrappers) is on the Roadmap.

Can I use CipherLogger without Express or Next.js?¶

Yes. The Logger class has no framework dependency — use it for startup messages, background jobs, or any non-HTTP logging. For HTTP requests outside a supported framework, call cipher.logRequest() manually with whatever data you have.

How do I add a custom field that isn't in fields?¶

Enable metadata in your config and pass a metadata object to logRequest, or via the adapter's request context where supported. See Passing metadata.

Does enabling more fields hurt performance?¶

Each enabled field does a small amount of extra work per request (header read, query-string parse, etc.). For most applications this is negligible, but if you're logging at very high request volumes, only enable the fields you actually consume downstream.

Is CommonJS supported, or only ESM?¶

Both. CipherLogger ships dual ESM/CJS builds, so import and require both work out of the box.

Where do I report a bug or request a framework adapter?¶

Open an issue on GitHub. Check the Roadmap first — your framework might already be planned.