Pino Lens

A VS Code extension (desktop + web) for opening, visualizing, and filtering pino JSON logs — right inside your editor.

Stop squinting at raw NDJSON files. Pino Lens gives you an interactive table with level badges, timestamps, full-text search, and a detail panel for any row, all without leaving VS Code.

Features

One-click open — open any pino log file from the Command Palette, the Explorer context menu, or the editor title bar.
NDJSON parsing — parses line-delimited JSON (one object per line) and maps standard pino level numbers to human-readable labels (trace / debug / info / warn / error / fatal).
Interactive filtering
- Full-text search across message and JSON payload
- Level filter (select one or more levels)
- Time-range filter
- Cap rendered rows to keep the view snappy on large files
Visual table — color-coded level badges, formatted timestamp, message column, and original line number for easy cross-reference.
Detail panel — click any row to inspect the complete JSON payload.
Parse diagnostics — invalid JSON lines are flagged separately so you never lose sight of malformed entries.
Works everywhere — runs in both the VS Code Desktop host and the VS Code for the Web (vscode.dev / github.dev) browser host.

Supported File Types

Extension	Description
`.log`	Generic log files
`.json`	JSON files
`.jsonl`	JSON Lines
`.ndjson`	Newline-delimited JSON
`.txt`	Plain-text log files

Getting Started

Open a log file

Method 1 — Command Palette

Press Ctrl+Shift+P (Windows/Linux) or Cmd+Shift+P (macOS).
Type Pino Lens: Open Log File and press Enter.
Select your .log / .json / .jsonl / .ndjson file.

Method 2 — Explorer context menu

Right-click any supported file in the Explorer sidebar and choose Open with Pino Lens.

Method 3 — Editor context menu / title bar

With a supported file open in the editor, right-click the editor area or the tab title and choose Open with Pino Lens.

Method 4 — Keyboard shortcut

With a supported file focused, press Ctrl+Shift+P, Ctrl+Shift+L (Windows/Linux) or Cmd+Shift+P, Cmd+Shift+L (macOS).

Filtering logs

Once the viewer is open, use the filter bar at the top to:

Type a keyword to search across all fields.
Toggle log levels to hide/show entries by severity.
Set a time range to scope the view to a specific window.
Limit the row count to keep rendering fast on very large files.

Expected Log Format

Pino Lens expects one JSON object per line (NDJSON). Standard pino output already uses this format:

{"level":30,"time":1713916800000,"pid":1234,"hostname":"server-1","msg":"api started","service":"gateway"}
{"level":40,"time":1713916860000,"pid":1234,"hostname":"server-1","msg":"slow query","duration":1523}
{"level":50,"time":1713916900000,"pid":1234,"hostname":"server-1","msg":"request failed","err":{"code":"E_PIPE"}}

Pino level numbers are mapped as follows:

Number	Label
10	trace
20	debug
30	info
40	warn
50	error
60	fatal

Any line that is not valid JSON is listed in the Parse Diagnostics section at the bottom of the viewer.

Current Limitations

Each file is loaded fully into memory before rendering — very large files (hundreds of MB) may be slow.
Only file-based inspection is supported; live log streaming is not yet implemented.
Non-standard pino time field formats are accepted on a best-effort basis.

Roadmap

Completed

[x] Saved filter presets
[x] Column customization (show/hide fields)
[x] Field-specific quick filters (click a value to filter by it)
[x] Follow mode for appended log files (live tail)
[x] Export filtered results

Planned

Performance

[x] Virtual / windowed scrolling — render only visible rows so very large files stay responsive
[x] Incremental (streaming) file load — parse and display lines as they are read rather than waiting for the full file

Search & Filtering

[x] Regex search — allow regular expression patterns in the search bar
[x] Compound filter expressions — combine field conditions with AND / OR / NOT operators
[x] Custom log-level mapping — let users configure non-standard level numbers to label names

Visualisation & Analysis

[x] Log statistics panel — bar / timeline chart showing level distribution and event frequency over time

[ ] Full keyboard navigation — move between rows, open detail panel, and toggle filters without a mouse
[ ] Syntax highlighting in detail panel — colorise keys, strings, numbers, and booleans in the JSON inspector

Integration

[ ] Attach to running process — stream pino output directly from a terminal or VS Code task instead of a static file

Development

pnpm install          # install dependencies
pnpm run compile      # build both desktop and web targets
pnpm run compile:desktop  # build desktop only
pnpm run compile:web      # build web only
pnpm run test:desktop # run desktop tests
pnpm run test:web     # run web tests
pnpm run lint         # lint TypeScript sources

For iterative development, use the watch tasks:

# Desktop (run both in separate terminals)
pnpm run watch-desktop:tsc
pnpm run watch-desktop:esbuild

# Web
pnpm run watch-web:tsc
pnpm run watch-web:esbuild

Architecture

Path	Role
`src/desktop/extension.ts`	Desktop extension entry point
`src/web/extension.ts`	Web extension entry point
`src/shared/pinoLog.ts`	NDJSON parser and data model
`src/shared/logViewerPanel.ts`	Webview panel logic (shared)
`src/webview/pinoLogViewer.ts`	Webview UI script

License

See LICENSE for details.

pino-lens

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