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Codespaces logs

In this article

Overview of the logging locations used by Codespaces.

Codespaces is available for organizations using GitHub Team or GitHub Enterprise Cloud. For more information, see "GitHub's products."

Information on Codespaces is output to three different logs:

  • Codespace logs
  • Creation logs
  • Extension logs (Visual Studio Code desktop) or Browser console logs (Visual Studio Code in the web)

Codespace logs

These logs contain detailed information about the codespace, the container, the session, and the Visual Studio Code environment. They are useful for diagnosing connection issues and other unexpected behavior. For example, the codespace freezes but the "Reload Windows" option unfreezes it for a few minutes, or you are randomly disconnected from the codespace but able to reconnect immediately.

  1. If you are using Codespaces in the browser, ensure that you are connected to the codespace you want to debug.
  2. Open the Visual Studio Code Command Palette (Shift + Command + P (Mac) / Ctrl + Shift + P (Windows)) and type Export logs. Select Codespaces: Export Logs from the list to download the logs.
  3. Define where to save the zip archive of logs then click Save (desktop) or click OK (web).
  4. If you are using Codespaces in the browser, right-click on the zip archive of logs from the Explorer view and select Download… to download them to your local machine.
  1. Open the Visual Studio Code Command Palette (Shift + Command + P (Mac) / Ctrl + Shift + P (Windows)) and type Export logs. Select Codespaces: Export Logs from the list to download the logs.
  2. Define where to save the zip archive of logs then click Save (desktop) or click OK (web).

Currently you can't use GitHub CLI to access these logs. To access them, open your codespace in Visual Studio Code or in a browser.

Creation logs

These logs contain information about the container, dev container, and their configuration. They are useful for debugging configuration and setup problems.

  1. Connect to the codespace you want to debug.
  2. Open the VS Code Command Palette (Shift + Command + P (Mac) / Ctrl + Shift + P (Windows)) and type Creation logs. Select Codespaces: View Creation Log from the list to open the creation.log file.

If you want to share the log with support, you can copy the text from the creation log into a text editor and save the file locally.

Open the Command Palette (Shift + Command + P (Mac) / Ctrl + Shift + P (Windows)) and type Creation logs. Select Codespaces: View Creation Log from the list to open the creation.log file.

If you want to share the log with support, you can copy the text from the creation log into a text editor and save the file locally.

To learn more about GitHub CLI, see "About GitHub CLI."

To see the creation log use the gh codespace logs subcommand. After entering the command choose from the list of codespaces that's displayed.

gh codespace logs

For more information about this command, see the GitHub CLI manual.

If you want to share the log with support, you can save the output to a file:

gh codespace logs -c  > /path/to/logs.txt

Extension logs

These logs are available for Visual Studio Code desktop users only. They are useful if it seems like the Codespaces extension or Visual Studio Code editor are having issues that prevent creation or connection.

  1. In Visual Studio Code, open the Command Palette.
  2. Type Logs and select Developer: Open Extension Logs Folder from the list to open the extension log folder in your system's file explorer.

From this view, you can access logs generated by the various extensions that you use in Visual Studio Code. You will see logs for GitHub Codespaces, GitHub Authentication, and Git, in addition to any other extensions you have enabled.

Browser console logs

These logs are useful only if you want to debug problems with using Codespaces in the browser. They are useful for debugging problems creating and connecting to Codespaces.

  1. In the browser window for the codespace you want to debug, open the developer tools window.
  2. Display the "Console" tab and click errors in the left side bar to show only the errors.
  3. In the log area on the right, right-click and select Save as to save a copy of the errors to your local machine. Save errors