The idea is:
Add an option to stream n8n event logs directly to stdout/stderr instead of only writing to a log file.
My use case:
When deploying n8n to Kubernetes using a Helm chart, event logs written to /home/node/.n8n/n8nEventLog.log are trapped within the container filesystem. This makes it difficult to:
- Ingest logs into centralized monitoring systems (like ELK, Datadog, Prometheus)
- View logs through Kubernetes log collection mechanisms
- Persist logs beyond the container lifecycle
I think it would be beneficial to add this because:
- It follows the container best practice of treating logs as event streams
- It simplifies integration with cloud-native logging infrastructure
- It reduces the need for log sidecar containers or volume mounts just for logs
- The community would gain greater visibility into their n8n deployments
Implementation thoughts:
- Add a configuration option (environment variable like
N8N_EVENTBUS_LOGWRITER_OUTPUT=stdout) - Support multiple outputs simultaneously (file + stdout)
- Ensure log formats are consistent between file and stdout output