Logging in MSAL.js

The Microsoft Authentication Library (MSAL) apps generate log messages that can help diagnose issues. An app can configure logging with a few lines of code, and have custom control over the level of detail and whether or not personal and organizational data is logged. We recommend you create an MSAL logging implementation and provide a way for users to submit logs when they have authentication issues.

Logging levels

MSAL provides several levels of logging detail:

• LogAlways: No level filtering is done on this log level. Log messages of all levels will be logged.
• Critical: Logs that describe an unrecoverable application or system crash, or a catastrophic failure that requires immediate attention.
• Error: Indicates something has gone wrong and an error was generated. Used for debugging and identifying problems.
• Warning: There hasn't necessarily been an error or failure, but are intended for diagnostics and pinpointing problems.
• Informational: MSAL will log events intended for informational purposes not necessarily intended for debugging.
• Verbose (Default): MSAL logs the full details of library behavior.

Note

Not all log levels are available for all MSAL SDK's

Personal and organizational data

By default, the MSAL logger doesn't capture any highly sensitive personal or organizational data. The library provides the option to enable logging personal and organizational data if you decide to do so.

The following sections provide more details about MSAL error logging for your application.

Configure logging in MSAL.js

Enable logging in MSAL.js (JavaScript) by passing a loggerOptions object during the configuration for creating a PublicClientApplication instance. The only required config parameter is the client ID of the application. Everything else is optional, but may be required depending on your tenant and application model.

The loggerOptions object has the following properties:

• loggerCallback: a Callback function that can be provided by the developer to handle the logging of MSAL statements in a custom manner. Implement the loggerCallback function depending on how you want to redirect logs. The loggerCallback function has the following format (level: LogLevel, message: string, containsPii: boolean): void
  • The supported log levels are: Error, Warning, Info, and Verbose. The default is Info.
• piiLoggingEnabled (optional): if set to true, logs personal and organizational data. By default this is false so that your application doesn't log personal data. Personal data logs are never written to default outputs like Console, Logcat, or NSLog.

import msal from "@azure/msal-browser"

const msalConfig = {
    auth: {
        clientId: "enter_client_id_here",
        authority: "https://login.microsoftonline.com/common",
        knownAuthorities: [],
        cloudDiscoveryMetadata: "",
        redirectUri: "enter_redirect_uri_here",
        postLogoutRedirectUri: "enter_postlogout_uri_here",
        navigateToLoginRequestUrl: true,
        clientCapabilities: ["CP1"]
    },
    cache: {
        cacheLocation: "sessionStorage",
        storeAuthStateInCookie: false,
        secureCookies: false
    },
    system: {
        loggerOptions: {
            logLevel: msal.LogLevel.Verbose,
            loggerCallback: (level, message, containsPii) => {
                if (containsPii) {
                    return;
                }
                switch (level) {
                    case msal.LogLevel.Error:
                        console.error(message);
                        return;
                    case msal.LogLevel.Info:
                        console.info(message);
                        return;
                    case msal.LogLevel.Verbose:
                        console.debug(message);
                        return;
                    case msal.LogLevel.Warning:
                        console.warn(message);
                        return;
                }
            },
            piiLoggingEnabled: false
        },
    },
};

Next steps

For more code samples, refer to Microsoft identity platform code samples.