Skip to content

Update binary logger docs #11369

New issue

Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.

Sign up for GitHub

By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.

Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account

Open
jeffkl wants to merge 2 commits into
base: main
Choose a base branch
from
Open

Update binary logger docs #11369

Changes from all commits
Commits
Show all changes
2 commits
Select commit Hold shift + click to select a range
05f7431
Update binary logger docs
jeffkl Jun 9, 2026
3f2731a
Potential fix for pull request finding
ghogen Jun 17, 2026
File filter

Filter by extension

Filter by extension
Conversations
Failed to load comments.
Loading
Jump to
Jump to file
Failed to load files.
Loading
Diff view
Diff view
12 changes: 11 additions & 1 deletion docs/msbuild/obtaining-build-logs-with-msbuild.md
View file
Open in desktop
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -86,11 +86,21 @@ In the following example, a binary log file is created with the name *binarylogf
```cmd
-bl:binarylogfilename.binlog
```

You can use the [Structured log viewer](https://msbuildlog.com/) to view binary logs in a way that makes it much easier to see what is going on.

For more information, see [Command-line reference](../msbuild/msbuild-command-line-reference.md).

The binary log includes the following information from a build:
- Logged messages with the `diagnostic` verbosity level
- The full contents of files imported by each project
- Properties, their final value, and any property reassignments
- Items, their metadata, and any item updates or removals
- Task inputs and outputs

> [!NOTE]
> Since the binary logger includes a substantial amount of information from the build, large builds can experience measurable overhead when it is enabled.
> If you have a large, complex build, consider enabling the binary logger only when necessary to avoid longer overall build times.

## Use a custom logger

You can write your own logger by authoring a managed type that implements the <xref:Microsoft.Build.Framework.ILogger> interface. You might use a custom logger, for instance, to send build errors in email, log them to a database, or log them to an XML file. For more information, see [Build loggers](../msbuild/build-loggers.md).
Expand Down