dd-logs

Log management - search, archives, metrics, and cost control.

npx skills add https://github.com/datadog-labs/agent-skills --skill dd-logs

Datadog Logs

Search, process, and archive logs with cost awareness.

Prerequisites

Datadog Pup should already be installed. See Setup Pup if not.

Command Execution Order (Token-Efficient)

For scoped commands, use this order:

  1. Check context first (prior outputs, conversation, saved values).
  2. If a required value is missing, run a discovery command first.
  3. If still ambiguous, ask the user to confirm.
  4. Then run the target command.
  5. Avoid speculative commands likely to fail.

Quick Start

pup auth login

Search Logs

# Basic search
pup logs search --query="status:error" --from="1h"

# With filters
pup logs search --query="service:api status:error" --from="1h" --limit 100

# JSON output
pup logs search --query="@http.status_code:>=500" --from="1h"

Search Syntax

QueryMeaning
errorFull-text search
status:errorTag equals
@http.status_code:500Attribute equals
@http.status_code:>=400Numeric range
service:api AND env:prodBoolean
@message:*timeout*Wildcard

Commands

pup logs search --query="status:error" --from="1h"
pup logs list
pup logs aggregate --query="*" --from="1h" --compute="count" --group-by="service"
pup logs patterns --query="status:error" --pattern-field="message" --from="1h"
pup logs query --query="service:api" --from="1h"
pup logs saved-views list

pup logs archives list
pup logs archives get <archive-id>
pup logs custom-destinations list
pup logs metrics list
pup logs metrics get <metric-id>

# Restriction queries are a top-level command, not a logs subcommand.
pup logs-restriction list

--compute and --group-by on aggregate, and the pattern flags, follow the installed pup logs <command> --help if it disagrees with the examples above.

Common Processors

{
  "name": "API Logs",
  "filter": {"query": "service:api"},
  "processors": [
    {
      "type": "grok-parser",
      "name": "Parse nginx",
      "source": "message",
      "grok": {"match_rules": "%{IPORHOST:client_ip} %{DATA:method} %{DATA:path} %{NUMBER:status}"}
    },
    {
      "type": "status-remapper",
      "name": "Set severity",
      "sources": ["level", "severity"]
    },
    {
      "type": "attribute-remapper",
      "name": "Remap user_id",
      "sources": ["user_id"],
      "target": "usr.id"
    }
  ]
}

Exclusion Filters (Cost Control)

Index only what matters:

{
  "name": "Drop debug logs",
  "filter": {"query": "status:debug"},
  "is_enabled": true
}

High-Volume Exclusions

# Find noisiest log sources
pup logs search --query="*" --from="1h" | jq 'group_by(.service) | map({service: .[0].service, count: length}) | sort_by(-.count)[:10]'
ExcludeQuery
Health checks@http.url:"/health" OR @http.url:"/ready"
Debug logsstatus:debug
Static assets@http.url:*.css OR @http.url:*.js
Heartbeats@message:*heartbeat*

Archives

Store logs cheaply for compliance:

# List archives
pup logs archives list

# Archive config (S3 example)
{
  "name": "compliance-archive",
  "query": "*",
  "destination": {
    "type": "s3",
    "bucket": "my-logs-archive",
    "path": "/datadog"
  },
  "rehydration_tags": ["team:platform"]
}

Rehydrate (Restore)

# Pup has no logs rehydrate command.
# Rehydrate from the Datadog UI or API.

Log-Based Metrics

Create metrics from logs (cheaper than indexing):

# List log-based metrics
pup logs metrics list

# Get one metric by ID
pup logs metrics get api.errors.count

Cardinality warning: Group by bounded values only.

Sensitive Data

Scrubbing Rules

{
  "type": "hash-remapper",
  "name": "Hash emails",
  "sources": ["email", "@user.email"]
}

Never Log

# In your app - sanitize before sending
import re

def sanitize_log(message: str) -> str:
    # Remove credit cards
    message = re.sub(r'\b\d{4}[-\s]?\d{4}[-\s]?\d{4}[-\s]?\d{4}\b', '[REDACTED]', message)
    # Remove SSNs
    message = re.sub(r'\b\d{3}-\d{2}-\d{4}\b', '[REDACTED]', message)
    return message

Troubleshooting

ProblemFix
Logs not appearingCheck agent, pipeline filters
High costsAdd exclusion filters
Search slowNarrow time range, use indexes
Missing attributesCheck grok parser

References/Documentation