---
url: https://lookingglass.kloudkit.com/guide/activity-log.md
description: >-
  Read Looking Glass's activity log: one colored line per request, without the
  request's contents.
---

# Activity Log

Looking Glass prints one line per request to stderr, so `docker logs` reads like an access
log.
The line never includes headers or bodies, so secrets in requests don't end up in your logs.

## At a Glance

* Looking Glass running *(see [Getting Started](./getting-started))*.
* Access to its output: `docker logs`, or the terminal it runs in.

## Read the Log

```sh
docker logs -f <container>
```

```text
2026/06/10 12:00:00 10.0.0.1:54321  POST  /api/users?page=2  →  html  14b
```

Each line has the time, the client address, the method, the path, the format of the
response and the size of the reflected body.
A body that was cut off shows a `+` after its size *(`1048576b+`)*.

The request side is lavender and the response side yellow, as in the logo.
The colors are always written, so a log collector stores the ANSI escape codes along with the
text.

Looking Glass also logs one line when it starts, with its port and body limit, and
`shutting down` when it stops.

## Safe to Log

Control characters are removed from the path before it's logged, so a request can't break
the log's lines or inject terminal escape codes.

## Next Steps

* [Response Formats](./response-formats): what the client gets back.
* [Configuration](../reference/configuration): change the port and the body limit.