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  • Version · 6.0
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log-format

Last updated: September 29, 2026

The log-format global parameter sets the format of log output to the console or to log files. Liquibase Open Source users default to unstructured TEXT logs to the console or output log files. Liquibase Secure users have the option to set the value as JSON or JSON_PRETTY to enable JSON-structured log files to the console or output log files. The default value is TEXT.

Uses

By default, Liquibase creates unstructured text strings when it generates command output. This information is helpful, but complicated to parse with a script. If you use Liquibase Secure, you can enable Structured Logging by setting log-format to JSON or JSON_PRETTY. Liquibase Structured Logs are formatted as a group of key-value pairs in JSON (JavaScript Object Notation). This allows you to integrate Liquibase with external log analysis tools like AWS Cloudwatch, ElasticSearch, and others.

If you set log-format to JSON, the output is generated in a machine-readable format with minimal whitespace. If you set it to JSON_PRETTY, the output is still machine-readable but also includes whitespace and indentation to be human-readable. You can also set log-format to TEXT or leave it blank to use unstructured logs.

By default, the output of log-format is sent to STDOUT. You can also send it to a file you specify with the log-file parameter.

Syntax

You can set this parameter in the following ways:

Option

Syntax

Liquibase properties file (defaults file)

liquibase.logFormat: <string>

Global flow file argument

globalArgs: { log-format: "<string>" }

Global CLI parameter

liquibase --log-format=<string> update --changelog-file=example-changelog.xml

JVM system property (JAVA_OPTS environment variable)

Unix:

JAVA_OPTS=-Dliquibase.logFormat=<string>

Windows:

JAVA_OPTS=-D"liquibase.logFormat"=<string>

Liquibase environment variable

LIQUIBASE_LOG_FORMAT=<string>

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