Logging in Extension #2156

Goal: Improved logging within the extension for diagnostics

Resources:

• VSC provides logging API (currently in preview)
• Different log levels provided by VSC include:

		Trace = 1,
		Debug = 2,
		Info = 3,
		Warning = 4,
		Error = 5,
		Critical = 6,
		Off = 7

Definitions:

• Critical = Contribute to extension not functioning at all, or something that must be fixed.
• Error = Contribute to features that may/may not function
• Warning = Indication of a feature that may not function correctly
• Info = Messages that will be generally useful for users
• Debug = Debug messages (for diagnostics)
• Trace = Everything (for diagnostics)

Requirements:

• Use VSC api as the backing store for logs (today we log into console window and output panel)
• Decide what must be logged and what categories each log message fall under
• Document how users can change log level
• Document how users can capture log output (for issues)
• Determine default log levels of VS Code (ideally i'd like to see info and above)

Generic logs and log levels:

• All external (process) commands executed must be logged with status of Info
• All errors encountered must be logged with status of Error (even if error is displayed to the user)
• Output of commands should be logged at a level of Debug (e.g. Linting, Testing, formatting, etc)

Formatting

• Logging formatting output would be an exception. The output is generally a diff of the entire file. So, the output could be as large/larger than size of file.
• Discuss:
  • Log level to view this output
  • Or should we have a special switch for this, i.e. output this?

Linting

Environments

• Exception when conda cannot be found (we know whether conda exists by trying to run conda command)
  • Log level for these errors = Debug

Environments

• Errors in detecting pipenv, conda, etc = Trace

@Microsoft/pvsc-team

• Please feel free to add a list of items that need to be logged along with the log level

Process Output

• Log all process output that will be subsequently parsed/processed.
  E.g. when getting linting output from pylint, log that output to the console window. Log all output.