pino-serializer-shorten

Create a custom wrapper serializer for pino to reduce the footprint of the req object.

What it basically does is to shorten the values that comes in the req.headers object.

For now.

The idea is that, in the future, we can also extend it to filter err and res objects, and other fields as well.

How to install?

npm i @juntoz/pino-serializer-shorten

How to use?

First require the package.

The entrypoint is a method that accepts an options object and returns the serializers object as pino-http requires.

const getSerializers = require('../index');

var kpl = require('koa-pino-logger')({
    // ... other options
    serializers: getSerializers(options)
});

koaApp.use(kpl);

This package uses the official pino-std-serializers package, so it should be fully compliant with pino and pino-http.

NOTE: my app uses koa, so I have not tried it in other type of applications using pino.

Options

The options object default values and structure is:

{
    // max length that the serializer allows. If the string is bigger, it shortens its length
    allowedMaxLength: 40,
    // when the string exceeds the max length, present the first X characters
    first: 10,
    // when the string exceeds the max length, present the last X characters
    last: 10,
    // when the string exceeds the max length, separate the first and last characters with this string
    separator: '...',
    // configuration for the req serializer
    req: {
        // enabled?. Default: true
        enabled: true,
        // whether to parse the cookie header
        parseCookie: true
    }
}

Parsing the cookie

When the setting req.parseCookie == true, the library will detect the req.headers.cookie field and it will apply a special logic.

Each request could receive multiple cookies, therefore it may be important to know what is inside, while still keeping your logs short.

If the setting is true, it will apply the same settings to each cookie and return the short version of each value.

If the setting is false, it will treat the field as a simple string and apply the shorten logic.

For example, for this req.headers.cookie

{
    "headers": {
        // ...
        "cookie": `.AspNetCore.Cookies=CfDJ8DVa95S6dSJInuv1bB_0X5SXNHo7j_pXq7xvhaz71trWk ciUTIfhfZeuHA6SZtgY6kn6Jdq-V3LhpkKtX6TLdQUaRyd_9p0OC7cykE7GH6eCCFHZzF hIbMCtW31d5FtFR1_X0Q8Xy-U2BBdYR6sA08OhNF0XGaCICp17MBt20Ngf67oTjlZxAjh gBJYtX_376RU-kVlKI7OLTWj12CNm_l7eQ; MyCookie=123456789012345678901234 56789012345678901234567890`
    }
};

If true, it will come up as:

cookie: .AspNetCore.Cookies=CfDJ8..._l7eQ; MyCookie=12345...67890

where each cookie is kept and the contents are shortened.

If false, on the other hand, it will treat it as a simple string

cookie: .AspN...67890

Test

Use this

npm test

The tests are basically verifying that the conversion logic works. It does not seem to require any test involving pino or pino-http.

The Future

What other features are in the pipeline?

1. Extend to err and res objects, although these two are not that large usually.
2. Select which headers to apply the shortened logic and which should not.
3. Select which root fields to apply this logic.
4. Parsing Cookies to have its own settings of shortening.
5. Try to make it more performant (run some benchmarks, tune the logic, not use lodash or cookie readers, etc).
6. Remove all headers instead of shorten them.