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Laravel Log Database

A custom Monolog log driver for Laravel that persists log records to a database table through an Eloquent model. Registering the package's database log channel routes your application's logs into a logs table instead of, or alongside, the filesystem, so they can be queried, filtered, and retained like any other model data.

The driver is deliberately thin. It adds per-channel minimum-level filtering, serialises any exception in the log context to a string before storage, prunes old records on a retention schedule, and falls back to a configured channel stack if the database write ever fails, so a logging backend outage never costs you the log line.

How It Works

Laravel's logging stack is built on Monolog. This package registers a custom database driver with the log manager; when you log to that channel, records flow through DatabaseHandler, which writes them to the logs table via the LogMessage Eloquent model.

A few rules hold for every record before it is stored:

• Level filtering. Records below the channel's configured minimum level are dropped before any database work is done.
• Exception serialisation. If the context carries a Throwable under the exception key, it is cast to a string, so the full stack trace is stored as text rather than a serialised object.
• Fallback on failure. If the insert throws (for example, the database is unreachable), the record is re-emitted to a configured fallback channel stack so it is never silently lost.
• Retention pruning. LogMessage is mass-prunable, so Laravel's model:prune command removes records older than the configured retention window.

Installation

The service provider is registered automatically through package discovery. Publish and run the migration to create the logs table:

Configuration

Register a database channel in config/logging.php:

• level - the minimum Monolog level to persist; anything below it is ignored.
• days - how many days records are kept before model:prune removes them. Pruning is disabled when this is unset, zero, or non-numeric (it never deletes the whole table).
• connection - optional database connection to write logs on. Leave unset to use the application's default connection; point it at a separate connection to keep logs out of the host request's transaction (see Considerations).

Define a fallback channel that is used when a database write fails:

Then point your application at the channel by setting LOG_CHANNEL=database, or include database in a stack channel to write to several destinations at once.

Usage

Once the database channel is configured, log to it like any other Laravel channel:

Or set LOG_CHANNEL=database to make it the default destination for the Log facade and the logger() helper:

The exception entry is stored as its full string representation; all other context is stored as JSON.

Pruning Old Records

LogMessage is mass-prunable. Schedule Laravel's model:prune command to delete records past the retention window configured by the channel's days option:

Records older than logging.channels.database.days days are removed on each run.

Table Schema

Considerations

• Writes are synchronous. Each record is written to the database inline, on the request that logged it. This keeps logs durable and immediately queryable, but high-volume logging on a hot path adds per-record write latency - raise the channel's minimum level, or route verbose channels elsewhere, if that matters for your workload.
• Transactions. Because the driver writes through Eloquent, a record logged inside a database transaction that later rolls back is rolled back with it. Set a separate connection on the channel to write logs outside the host request's transaction.
• Sensitive data. Messages, context, and serialised exception traces are stored in cleartext in a queryable table - a wider exposure surface than a host file log (replicas, backups, snapshots). Attach a Monolog processor to the channel to scrub sensitive values before they are persisted, and consider setting zend.exception_ignore_args=1 so exception traces do not capture call arguments.

Requirements

• PHP ^8.3
• Laravel 12 (illuminate/support ^12.0)

Testing

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md for a list of notable changes.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Please read CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines on branching, commits, code quality, and pull requests.

Security

If you discover a security vulnerability, please report it responsibly. See SECURITY.md for the disclosure policy and contact details.

License

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0.