Golang Samber Slog

Persona: You are a Go logging architect. You design log pipelines where every record flows through the right handlers — sampling drops noise early, formatters strip PII before records leave the process, and routers send errors to Sentry while info goes to Loki.

samber/slog-\\\\ — Structured Logging Pipeline for Go

20+ composable slog.Handler packages for Go 1.21+. Three core pipeline libraries plus HTTP middlewares and backend sinks that all implement the standard slog.Handler interface.

Official resources:

• github.com/samber/slog-multi — handler composition
• github.com/samber/slog-sampling — throughput control
• github.com/samber/slog-formatter — attribute transformation

This skill is not exhaustive — refer to library documentation and code examples for more information:

• For Go package docs, symbols, versions, importers, and known vulnerabilities, → See samber/cc-skills-golang@golang-pkg-go-dev skill (godig), preferred over Context7 for Go package facts.
• To navigate this library's usage in your own code (definitions, call sites, diagnostics), → See samber/cc-skills-golang@golang-gopls skill (gopls).
• Context7 remains a fallback for docs not indexed on pkg.go.dev.

The Pipeline Model

Every samber/slog pipeline follows a canonical ordering. Records flow left to right — place sampling first to drop early and avoid wasting CPU on records that never reach a sink.

record → [Sampling] → [Pipe: trace/PII] → [Router] → [Sinks]

Order matters: sampling before formatting saves CPU. Formatting before routing ensures all sinks receive clean attributes. Reversing this wastes work on records that get dropped.

Core Libraries

slog-multi — Handler Composition

Six composition patterns, each for a different routing need:

// Route errors to Sentry, all logs to stdout
logger := slog.New(
    slogmulti.Router().
        Add(sentryHandler, slogmulti.LevelIs(slog.LevelError)).
        Add(slog.NewJSONHandler(os.Stdout, nil)).
        Handler(),
)

Built-in predicates: LevelIs, LevelIsNot, MessageIs, MessageIsNot, MessageContains, MessageNotContains, AttrValueIs, AttrKindIs.

For full code examples of every pattern, see Pipeline Patterns.

slog-sampling — Throughput Control

Sampling MUST be the outermost handler in the pipeline — placing it after formatting wastes CPU on records that get dropped.

// Threshold: log first 10 per 5s, then 10% — errors always pass through via Router
logger := slog.New(
    slogmulti.
        Pipe(slogsampling.ThresholdSamplingOption{
            Tick: 5 * time.Second, Threshold: 10, Rate: 0.1,
        }.NewMiddleware()).
        Handler(innerHandler),
)

Matchers group similar records for deduplication: MatchByLevel(), MatchByMessage(), MatchByLevelAndMessage() (default), MatchBySource(), MatchByAttribute(groups, key).

For strategy comparison and configuration details, see Sampling Strategies.

slog-formatter — Attribute Transformation

Apply as a Pipe middleware so all downstream handlers receive clean attributes.

logger := slog.New(
    slogmulti.Pipe(slogformatter.NewFormatterMiddleware(
        slogformatter.PIIFormatter("user"),          // mask PII fields
        slogformatter.ErrorFormatter("error"),       // structured error info
        slogformatter.IPAddressFormatter("client"),  // mask IP addresses
    )).Handler(slog.NewJSONHandler(os.Stdout, nil)),
)

Key formatters: PIIFormatter, ErrorFormatter, TimeFormatter, UnixTimestampFormatter, IPAddressFormatter, HTTPRequestFormatter, HTTPResponseFormatter. Generic formatters: FormatByType[T], FormatByKey, FormatByKind, FormatByGroup, FormatByGroupKey. Flatten nested attributes with FlattenFormatterMiddleware.

HTTP Middlewares

Consistent pattern across frameworks: router.Use(slogXXX.New(logger)).

Available: slog-gin, slog-echo, slog-fiber, slog-chi, slog-http (net/http).

All share a Config struct with: DefaultLevel, ClientErrorLevel, ServerErrorLevel, WithRequestBody, WithResponseBody, WithUserAgent, WithRequestID, WithTraceID, WithSpanID, Filters.

// Gin with filters — skip health checks
router.Use(sloggin.NewWithConfig(logger, sloggin.Config{
    DefaultLevel:     slog.LevelInfo,
    ClientErrorLevel: slog.LevelWarn,
    ServerErrorLevel: slog.LevelError,
    WithRequestBody:  true,
    Filters: []sloggin.Filter{
        sloggin.IgnorePath("/health", "/metrics"),
    },
}))

For framework-specific setup, see HTTP Middlewares.

Backend Sinks

All follow the Option{}.NewXxxHandler() constructor pattern.

Batch handlers require graceful shutdown — slog-datadog, slog-loki, slog-kafka, and slog-parquet buffer records internally. Flush on shutdown (e.g., handler.Stop(ctx) for Datadog, lokiClient.Stop() for Loki, writer.Close() for Kafka) or buffered logs are lost.

For configuration examples and shutdown patterns, see Backend Handlers.

Common Mistakes