# How to log express HTTP requests using morgan with style?

In this cookbook, I am gonna help you setup morgan with express to log HTTP requests like this,


![image.png](https://cdn.hashnode.com/res/hashnode/image/upload/v1614685439439/cRWpbN52u.png)

at the end of this post, you will be able to log the following details
- ***date and time of the request*** ( formatted as **hh:mm a ddd, MMMM Do YYYY** )
- ***HTTP Method***  (ex: GET, POST, PUT, DELETE)
- ***endpoint path*** (ex: /, /users, /payments)
- ***response time*** ( The time between the request coming into morgan and when the response headers are written, in milliseconds. )
- ***remote-address*** ( The remote address of the request. This will use req.ip, otherwise the standard req.connection.remoteAddress value.)
- ***remote-user*** ( The user authenticated as part of Basic auth for the request. )
- ***user-agent*** ( The User-Agent request header is a characteristic string that lets servers and network peers identify the application, operating system, vendor, and/or version of the requesting user agent. )

# Install Dependencies
```
npm i morgan moment-timezone

# or if you are using yarn
yarn add morgan moment-timezone
```

# Setting up morgan tokens

morgan logger allows you to customize with the .token() method. The .token() method takes in name of the token as the first argument, following a callback function. morgan will run the callback function each time a log occurs using the token.

```
morgan.token('date', (req, res, tz: string) => {
  return moment()
    .tz(tz)
    .format('hh:mm a ddd, MMMM Do YYYY');
});
morgan.token('splitter', () => {
  return '\x1b[36m--------------------------------------------\x1b[0m\n';
});
morgan.token('statusColor', (req, res) => {
  const status = (typeof res.headersSent !== 'boolean'
  ? Boolean(res.header)
  : res.headersSent)
    ? res.statusCode
    : undefined;
  const color =
    status >= 500
      ? 31
      : status >= 400
      ? 33
      : status >= 300
      ? 36
      : status >= 200
      ? 32
      : 0;

  return '\x1b[' + color + 'm' + status + '\x1b[0m';
});
```

# Morgan in express middleware

```
  app.use(
    morgan(
      `:splitter :date[Asia/Kolkata]   \x1b[33m:method\x1b[0m \x1b[36m:url\x1b[0m :statusColor \x1b[35m:response-time ms\x1b[0m | \x1b[35m:remote-addr\x1b[0m | :remote-user | \x1b[30m:user-agent\x1b[0m`,
    ),
  );

```
here I have used my local timezone, you can change Asia/Kolkata to your local timezone.

## Skipping logs
if you want to skip logging a specific request that's called frequently but you don't need to have the log you can use the below code and replace startsWith argument with the request URL of yours

```
app.use(
    morgan(
      `:splitter :date[Asia/Kolkata]    \x1b[33m:method\x1b[0m \x1b[36m:url\x1b[0m :statusColor \x1b[35m:response-time ms\x1b[0m | \x1b[35m:remote-addr\x1b[0m | :remote-user | \x1b[30m:user-agent\x1b[0m`,
      {
        skip: (req, res) => {
          return req.originalUrl.startsWith('/metrics');
        },
      },
    ),
  );
```