Updated Step by step: Serilog with ASP.NET Core

Many of you come to my site to read the post Step by step: Serilog with ASP.NET Core which I wrote in 2016 and is completely out of date, so with this post I will show you how to setup Serilog to work with your ASP.NET Core 2.2 applications.

1. Create an ASP.NET Core project

---

md aspnet.serilog.sample
    cd aspnet.serilog.sample
    dotnet new mvc

2. Add the following dependencies to your project

---

dotnet add package Microsoft.AspNetCore.App
    dotnet add package Microsoft.AspNetCore.Razor.Design
    dotnet add package Serilog.AspNetCore
    dotnet add package Serilog.Extensions.Logging
    dotnet add package Serilog.Sinks.ColoredConsole

3. Change your Program.cs file to look like the following

---

public class Program
{
    public static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        // Create the logger
        Log.Logger = new LoggerConfiguration()
            .Enrich.FromLogContext()
            .MinimumLevel.Debug()
            .WriteTo.ColoredConsole(
                LogEventLevel.Verbose,
                "{NewLine}{Timestamp:HH:mm:ss} [{Level}] ({CorrelationToken}) {Message}{NewLine}{Exception}")
                .CreateLogger();

        try
        {
            CreateWebHostBuilder(args).Build().Run();
        }
        finally
        {
            // Close and flush the log.
            Log.CloseAndFlush();
        }
    }

    public static IWebHostBuilder CreateWebHostBuilder(string[] args) =>
        WebHost.CreateDefaultBuilder(args)
            .UseSerilog() // Set serilog as the loggin provider.
            .UseStartup<Startup>();
}

4. Inject the logger to your services or controllers

---

Change the home controller and log some actions:

public class HomeController : Controller
    {
        // Logger instance
        ILogger<HomeController> logger;

        // Logger is injected into the controller
        public HomeController(ILogger<HomeController> logger)
        {
            this.logger = logger;
        }

        public IActionResult Index()
        {
            // Log something
            this.logger.LogDebug("Index was called");
            return View();
        }

        public IActionResult Privacy()
        {
            return View();
        }

        [ResponseCache(Duration = 0, Location = ResponseCacheLocation.None, NoStore = true)]
        public IActionResult Error()
        {
            return View(new ErrorViewModel { RequestId = Activity.Current?.Id ?? HttpContext.TraceIdentifier });
        }
    }

Download the complete code here

Hope it helps!