CSharpEssentials.LoggerHelper.Dashboard 5.2.2

CSharpEssentials.LoggerHelper.Dashboard

Embedded real-time diagnostics dashboard for ASP.NET Core — no Seq, no Kibana, no extra infrastructure.

Navigate to /loggerhelper and see the health of your logging pipeline at a glance: active sinks, live log stream, error history, and the full context that preceded your last crash.

Install

dotnet add package CSharpEssentials.LoggerHelper.Dashboard

Requires: CSharpEssentials.LoggerHelper ≥ 5.2.0

Wire up (Program.cs)

using CSharpEssentials.LoggerHelper;
using CSharpEssentials.LoggerHelper.Dashboard;

var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

builder.Services.AddLoggerHelper(builder.Configuration);
builder.Services.AddLoggerHelperDashboard();

var app = builder.Build();
app.UseLoggerHelper();
app.MapLoggerHelperDashboard();   // → /loggerhelper

app.Run();

Navigate to https://localhost:5001/loggerhelper.

Features

Sink Health Cards

At-a-glance status for every configured sink: ACTIVE / FAILED badges, assigned log levels, toggle controls. The overall health indicator (OK / WARNING / CRITICAL) updates automatically on each refresh.

Live Log Stream

Browser-based tail -f via Server-Sent Events. Filter by level or free-text in real time. Toggle the Live switch to pause without disconnecting.

Error History

Click-to-expand table of recent sink errors (SMTP failures, DB write errors, network timeouts) with full stack traces. Never lose a sink error silently.

Context Before Error (requires contextual logging)

The most powerful panel: when an Error or Fatal event fires, the zero-allocation ring buffer automatically flushes all preceding Debug/Info/Warning entries to the Dashboard. You see exactly what happened before the crash — without keeping verbose logging on permanently.

09:55:07.136  [Information]  HashCollectorWorker started. Interval: 60min
09:55:07.208  [Information]  Now listening on: http://localhost:5055
09:55:07.452  [Warning]      Slow query: 2340ms on GetOrders
─────────────────── ▼ Triggering event ──────────────────────
09:55:08.301  [Error]        NullReferenceException in OrderService.Process

Enable in appsettings.json:

{
  "LoggerHelper": {
    "General": {
      "EnableContextualLogging": true,
      "ContextualBufferCapacity": 200
    }
  }
}

How it works: a lock-free ring buffer (Interlocked, zero heap allocations after startup) retains the last N log entries. On Error/Fatal the buffer flushes context to your configured sinks with IsContextualHistory = true, and the Dashboard reads the flushed entries via /api/status. The triggering Error/Fatal is stored separately and shown with a red "▼ Triggering event" separator — it never enters the ring buffer, preventing feedback loops.

Routing Configuration

Visual table of which log levels go to which sinks — useful when diagnosing why a specific message did or did not appear in a given sink.

Runtime Controls

Toggle any sink on/off or change log levels without restarting the application. Works in conjunction with the MCP server (CSharpEssentials.LoggerHelper.MCP) for AI-driven control.

Configuration options

builder.Services.AddLoggerHelperDashboard(options => {
    options.Path = "/loggerhelper";        // default — change to any route
    options.RequireAuthorization = true;   // protect with ASP.NET Core auth
    options.RefreshIntervalSeconds = 15;   // default 30s
});

Protect with authentication (production)

// Program.cs
builder.Services.AddAuthentication(...);
builder.Services.AddAuthorization();
builder.Services.AddLoggerHelperDashboard(o => o.RequireAuthorization = true);

// ...
app.UseAuthentication();
app.UseAuthorization();
app.MapLoggerHelperDashboard();

JSON API endpoints

The Dashboard exposes three endpoints you can call directly (useful for integration tests or external monitoring):

# Check health from CI or monitoring
curl https://myapp.com/loggerhelper/api/status

Troubleshooting

Dashboard shows "LOADING..." permanently

The JavaScript derives its base path from window.location.pathname at runtime. If you serve the app behind a reverse proxy with a path prefix, make sure the prefix is included in the URL you navigate to — the dashboard detects it automatically.

Context Before Error panel never appears

• Confirm EnableContextualLogging: true is set in your config
• The panel only shows after at least one Error or Fatal has been logged — trigger one via your demo endpoint or a test request
• If contextual logging is disabled, the panel is hidden

Context Before Error shows only the triggering event, no preceding entries

Verify you are on version ≥ 5.2.2. Earlier builds had a feedback loop where re-emitted context entries (with IsContextualHistory = true) looped back through the pipeline as new Error events, overwriting _lastFlush and clearing the context entries.

SSE stream disconnects on client close

Normal behavior — OperationCanceledException on disconnect is caught internally. The browser reconnects automatically within 5 seconds.

Zero dependencies

Pure HTML/CSS/JS served as an embedded string resource. No npm, no bundler, no CDN calls at runtime. The package adds a single MapGet route to your ASP.NET Core app.

License

MIT — loggerhelper.com · GitHub