Problem:

I want to figure out which log entries belong to which request.

Also, being a lazy person, I want to get away with as little work as possible. In particular that means:

I don’t want to pass extra function parameters / implicits (solutions like Logger.takingImplicit of scala-logging won’t cut)

of scala-logging won’t cut) I don’t want to pollute my domain signatures with something like ReaderT[Task, RequestId, A] instead of plain Task s.

instead of plain s. I don’t want to manually insert request ID to every call to log function. I want to set it once and be done with it.

Java SLF4J API already support all this functionality in form of MDC. However, the existing implementations use a ThreadLocal variable, which doesn’t work if you’re not creating a separate thread per each request - which I do not.

Solution:

Subclass your backend’s (Logback here) MDC adapter and override everything to use a Local :

import monix.execution.misc.Local import ch.qos.logback.classic.util.LogbackMDCAdapter import java. { util => ju } class MonixMDCAdapter extends LogbackMDCAdapter { private [ this ] val map = Local [ ju.Map [ String , String ]]( ju . Collections . emptyMap ()) override def put ( key : String , `val` : String ) : Unit = { if ( map () eq ju . Collections . EMPTY_MAP ) { map := new ju . HashMap () } map (). put ( key , `val` ) () } override def get ( key : String ) : String = map (). get ( key ) override def remove ( key : String ) : Unit = { map (). remove ( key ) () } // Note: we're resetting the Local to default, not clearing the actual hashmap override def clear () : Unit = map . clear () override def getCopyOfContextMap : ju.Map [ String , String ] = new ju . HashMap ( map ()) override def setContextMap ( contextMap : ju.Map [ String , String ]) : Unit = map := new ju . HashMap ( contextMap ) override def getPropertyMap : ju.Map [ String , String ] = map () override def getKeys : ju.Set [ String ] = map (). keySet () }

Plug it in using reflection:

// ... somewhere in a main ... import org.slf4j.MDC val field = classOf [ MDC ]. getDeclaredField ( "mdcAdapter" ) field . setAccessible ( true ) field . set ( null , new MonixMDCAdapter )

Use MDC like you would normally (example showing Log4s):

import org.log4s._ // ...somewhere in a method... for { user <- authenticate ( token ) _ <- Task . eval { MDC ( "user" ) = user . email } } yield user

Read the important notes section.

Explanation

Monix 3 has a new feature called “local context propagation”, which is essentially ThreadLocal s being tied to an execution of a single Task instead of a thread. Two APIs are provided:

monix.execution.misc.Local - a side-effecting fully synchronous version

monix.eval.TaskLocal - a pure version based on Monix Task.

They are both interfaces to the same context, i.e. both Local and TaskLocal values get transmitted together. You can also go from TaskLocal to Local by using TaskLocal#local (a mouthful of locals!).

Local , due to its synchronous and side-effecting nature, makes a perfect replacement for Java APIs that are using ThreadLocal , like Logback’s MDC adapter. Unfortunately, MDC is tied to a backend, so we are forced to use reflection to plug in our version.

Most of the code above is straightforward, but there’s one caveat that you should be aware of. See how I dance with Java’s emptyMap below:

private [ this ] val map = Local [ ju.Map [ String , String ]]( ju . Collections . emptyMap ()) override def put ( key : String , `val` : String ) : Unit = { if ( map () eq ju . Collections . EMPTY_MAP ) { map := new ju . HashMap () } map (). put ( key , `val` ) () }

This is required because default values are not immediately set into the local context. Instead, it happens only on first write - and I mean doing := on local, not mutating the value inside! Had I used a mutable map as a default, it would work like a global variable.

Important notes

By default, local context propagation is disabled! You need to enable it in one of following ways:

Applying a transformation .executeWithOptions(_.enableLocalContextPropagation) on each Task that uses a Local

on each that uses a Setting system property monix.environment.localContextPropagation to 1

to Specifying implicit Task.Options and using runAsyncOpt .

Monix Local is not yet fleshed out completely. There are bugs in Monix 3.0.0-RC1:

Using executeOn breaks propagation (ticket)

Workaround: use Task.shift(ec) or Task#asyncBoundary(ec) for switching execution context

Local context might not clear if mutated before async boundaries (ticket)

Workaround: perform a Task.shift before reading/writing any locals (e.g. in http4s middleware)

Cats-effect typeclasses do not use Task.Options (ticket)

The fix for that has already been merged in, but it means that in RC1 you cannot rely on having implicit options if you’re using e.g. http4s or something else that requires Effect instance. Use one of alternatives I provided above.

As you can see, the local context propagation is quite powerful and easy to use. I’m sure more interesting uses will surface later, but even now we are able to adapt the old-fashioned Java APIs that assume thread-per-request model.

Stay tuned for part 2, where I get meaningfull call traces abusing instrumentation, because I’m still too lazy to change my business logic for the sake of logging.