---
page_title: Enable logs to debug Terraform
description: >-
  Enable Terraform to generate logs so that you can debug unexpected behaviors.
---

# Enable Terraform logs

This topic describes how to enable Terraform logs so that you can debug unexpected behaviors.

> **Hands-on:** Try the [Create Dynamic Expressions](/terraform/tutorials/configuration-language/troubleshooting-workflow#bug-reporting-best-practices?utm_source=WEBSITE&utm_medium=WEB_IO&utm_offer=ARTICLE_PAGE&utm_content=DOCS) tutorial.

## Set the `TF_LOG` variable

Terraform has detailed logs that you can enable by setting the `TF_LOG` environment variable to any value. Enabling this setting causes detailed logs to appear on `stderr`.

You can set `TF_LOG` to one of the log levels (in order of decreasing verbosity) `TRACE`, `DEBUG`, `INFO`, `WARN` or `ERROR` to change the verbosity of the logs.

Setting `TF_LOG` to `JSON` outputs logs at the `TRACE` level or higher, and uses a parseable JSON encoding as the formatting.

~> **Warning:** The JSON encoding of log files is not considered a stable interface. It may change at any time, without warning. It is meant to support tooling that will be forthcoming, and that tooling is the only supported way to interact with JSON formatted logs.

## Set the `TF_LOG_CORE` variable 

Logging can be enabled separately for Terraform itself and the provider plugins
using the `TF_LOG_CORE` or `TF_LOG_PROVIDER` environment variables. These take
the same level arguments as `TF_LOG`, but only activate a subset of the logs.

To persist logged output you can set `TF_LOG_PATH` in order to force the log to always be appended to a specific file when logging is enabled. Note that even when `TF_LOG_PATH` is set, `TF_LOG` must be set in order for any logging to be enabled.

If you find a bug with Terraform, please include the detailed log by using a service such as gist.
