Renovate console logs are longer forwarded to the log file

[shenke-adsk]

Version: Renovate CE 8.7.0

Renovate app used to support a RENOVATE_LOG_FILE env variable which tells the CLI to forward its console logs to a log file. This variable no longers works in the latest release.

Instead, it (not sure since which version) introduces some new variables LOG_FILE, LOG_FILE_LEVEL, etc. However, these variables do not work as RENOVATE_LOG_FILE, or do not work as what I thought would be.

Set up in my docker-compose.yml:

      - LOG_LEVEL=debug
      - LOG_FILE=/logs/renovate.log
      - LOG_CONTEXT=renovate-preview
      - LOG_FILE_LEVEL=debug
      - LOG_FORMAT=pretty
      - RENOVATE_LOG_FILE=/logs/renovate_runtime.log

Observations:

1. The file specified by RENOVATE_LOG_FILE does not exist. It never gets created. So my guess is this variable just no longer works.
2. The file specified by LOG_FILE does exist, but it does not contain any useful debug information for me. What I am looking for, is the exact same log entries as we see on the container console out. For example,

renovate-1  | DEBUG: Using localDir: /tmp/renovate/repos/github/shenv/scripts (repository=shenv/scripts)
renovate-1  | DEBUG: PackageFiles.clear() - Package files deleted (repository=shenv/scripts)
renovate-1  | DEBUG: initRepo("shenv/scripts") (repository=shenv/scripts)
renovate-1  | DEBUG: hostRules: authentication already set for redacted (repository=shenv/scripts)
renovate-1  | DEBUG: Using queue: host=redacted, concurrency=16 (repository=shenv/scripts)
renovate-1  | DEBUG: shenv/scripts default branch = master (repository=shenv/scripts)
renovate-1  | DEBUG: Using app token for git init (repository=shenv/scripts)
renovate-1  | DEBUG: RepoCacheBase.load() - expecting data of type 'string' received 'object' instead - skipping (repository=shenv/scripts)
renovate-1  | DEBUG: Resetting npmrc (repository=shenv/scripts)
renovate-1  | DEBUG: Resetting npmrc (repository=shenv/scripts)
renovate-1  | DEBUG: checkOnboarding() (repository=shenv/scripts)
renovate-1  | DEBUG: isOnboarded() (repository=shenv/scripts)
renovate-1  | DEBUG: findPr(renovate/configure, Configure Renovate, !open) (repository=shenv/scripts)

These are what matters and I would look for them in the log file. However, all it output in that file for the same repo are below, which is not really useful.

{"name":"mend-renovate","hostname":"9292caeeac30","pid":8,"level":20,"logContext":"renovate-preview","job":{"jobId":"6aae34f7-2c5a-4437-821b-ae2ae92bdfb9","reason":"scheduledAll","priority":10,"addedAt":"2024-11-15 19:30:00","startedAt":"2024-11-15 20:45:06","lastAlive":"2024-11-15 20:45:06","attempts":2,"repository":"shenv/scripts","organizationName":"shenv","repositorySelection":"selected","installationId":4233},"config":{"endpoint":"redacted","logContext":"6aae34f7-2c5a-4437-821b-ae2ae92bdfb9","platform":"github","gitAuthor":"renovate-preview[bot] <redacted>","gitIgnoredAuthors":["redacted"],"repositories":["shenv/scripts"],"username":"renovate-preview[bot]","mergeConfidenceEndpoint":"https://developer.mend.io/","token":"***********","dependencyDashboardFooter":"\n- [ ] <!-- manual job -->Check this box to trigger a request for Renovate to run again on this repository\n"},"msg":"Running Renovate job","time":"2024-11-15T20:45:06.499Z","v":0}
{"name":"mend-renovate","hostname":"9292caeeac30","pid":8,"level":20,"logContext":"renovate-preview","repository":"shenv/scripts","cmd":"/usr/bin/node_default /usr/src/app/node_modules/renovate/dist/renovate.js","msg":"Executing Renovate run command","time":"2024-11-15T20:45:06.501Z","v":0}

[rarkins]

It was removed in the v38 major release of Renovate CLI.

It will be supported again once renovatebot/renovate#32499 is available in CE/EE