KmperTrace

Span‑aware tracing and structured logging for Kotlin Multiplatform - with a CLI that turns raw logs into readable trace trees.

When you’re chasing a bug that hops across coroutines, threads, and platforms, plain logs are not enough. KmperTrace lets you wrap important operations in spans, emit structured log lines with trace/span IDs, and then reconstruct the full call tree from a single log file.

Example: two overlapping downloads, nested repository/DB calls, and an injected failure - all reconstructed from plain log output.

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What KmperTrace gives you

End‑to‑end traces from just logs. No agents, no collectors: KmperTrace encodes trace/span IDs and span start/end markers into log lines that can be shipped with whatever logging pipeline you already use.

Consistent tracing across KMP targets. One API that works on Android, iOS, JVM, and Wasm, with span/trace propagation that survives coroutine and thread hops.

Structured, low‑overhead logging. Logfmt‑compatible output that includes level, timestamp, trace/span IDs, source component/operation, and optional stack traces for errors.

Developer‑friendly tooling. A CLI (kmpertrace-cli) that can ingest a flat logfile and render readable trace trees, plus a sample Compose Multiplatform app that demonstrates end‑to‑end flow.

Pluggable sinks. Platform‑native log sinks by default (Logcat, NSLog/print, stdout/console), with hooks to add your own LogSink implementations.

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Modules

kmpertrace-runtime/ Kotlin Multiplatform runtime with:

• tracing API (traceSpan, KmperTracer),
• structured logging (Log, components/operations),
• platform‑specific glue to propagate trace context through coroutines and threads.

kmpertrace-cli/ JVM CLI that:

• reads structured KmperTrace log lines from a file or stdin,
• groups them by trace,
• reconstructs span trees, and
• renders them as a readable text UI (as shown in the screenshot above).

Pure iOS consumer? See docs/IOS-XCFramework.md for using the prebuilt XCFramework (manual drag/drop or SwiftPM binary target from the release assets).

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Quick Start

Add the runtime dependency

In your KMP project, add kmpertrace-runtime to the source sets where you want tracing/logging:

commonMain {
dependencies {
implementation("dev.goquick:kmpertrace-runtime:<version>")
}
}

Configure KmperTrace at startup

Somewhere in your app initialization (per process):

fun App() {
LaunchedEffect(Unit) {
KmperTrace.configure(
minLevel = Level.DEBUG,
serviceName = "sample-app",
)
}
}

Wrap work in spans and log

suspend fun refreshAll() = traceSpan(component = "ProfileViewModel", operation = "refreshAll") {
Log.i { "Refreshing profile..." }

repository.loadProfile()
repository.loadContacts()
repository.loadActivity()

Log.i { "Refresh complete" }
}

All logs inside traceSpan { ... } will carry trace/span IDs so the CLI can reconstruct the tree. 1.

Run your app and collect logs for Android (non-interactive mode)

Run the app as usual; KmperTrace will emit structured log lines to the platform backend (Logcat, NSLog, stdout, etc.).

To collect logs for already running app, launch:

adb logcat --pid=$(adb shell pidof -s dev.goquick.kmpertrace.sampleapp) > /tmp/kmpertrace.log

(change package to your app’s package name)

After that keep using the app to collect logs into a file. Press Ctrl+C to stop log collection.

Or (this is what I usually do) just copy/paste to file from Android Studio’s Logcat view. 1.

Visualize with the CLI (non-interactive mode)

Clone the repo and build the binary for the CLI (need for both interactive and non-interactive modes):

git clone https://github.com/mobiletoly/kmpertrace.git
cd kmpertrace
./gradlew :kmpertrace-cli:installDist

Run the CLI to visualize the logs from existing file (non-interactive print mode):

./kmpertrace-cli/build/install/kmpertrace-cli/bin/kmpertrace-cli print --file /path/to/your.log --color=on

Or visualize logs in real-time from adb logcat (drop adb logcat -c if you don’t want to clear the log buffer first):

adb logcat -c && adb logcat -v epoch --pid="$(adb shell pidof dev.goquick.kmpertrace.sampleapp)" \
| ./kmpertrace-cli/build/install/kmpertrace-cli/bin/kmpertrace-cli print --follow --color=on

(replace dev.goquick.kmpertrace.sampleapp with your app’s package name)

You’ll see per‑trace trees similar to the screenshot from the beginning of this README, with spans, durations, log lines, and error stack traces. 1.

Visualize with the CLI (interactive mode)

We have experimental interactive mode in kmpertrace-cli. E.g. to run it for adb logs you can run:

./kmpertrace-cli/build/install/kmpertrace-cli/bin/kmpertrace-cli tui --source adb \
--adb-pkg dev.goquick.kmpertrace.sampleapp

or for iOS:

./kmpertrace-cli/build/install/kmpertrace-cli/bin/kmpertrace-cli tui --source ios \
--ios-proc SampleApp

This tool was tested on MacOS and Linux. Non-interactive print mode (or piping logs into tui –source stdin/file) should work on Windows. The interactive single-key raw mode doesn’t (Windows lacks the POSIX stty path), so Windows will fall back to the line-buffered input: type the letter and press Enter. ANSI styling works best in Windows Terminal/PowerShell with VT enabled (modern Windows does this by default); classic cmd.exe may look worse but still functions.

See docs/CLI-UserGuide.md for current flags and interactive keys.

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Attributes

Spans can have key/value attributes that show up next to span names in the CLI (useful for small, high-signal identifiers like jobId, http.status, cache.hit).

Normal vs debug attributes

• Pass attributes with plain keys via APIs (no prefix): attributes = mapOf("jobId" to "123").
• Mark a debug-only attribute by prefixing the key with ?: attributes = mapOf("?userEmail" to "a@b.com").
• Debug attributes are only emitted when KmperTrace.configure(emitDebugAttributes = true).

CLI rendering

• Print mode: add --span-attrs on
• Interactive TUI: press a (status bar shows [a] attrs=off|on)
• Debug attributes render with a ? prefix (e.g. ?userEmail=a@b.com).

Wire format and key rules

• In raw structured logs, attributes are encoded as a:<key> (normal) and d:<key> (debug).
• Keys are restricted to [A-Za-z0-9_.-] (after optional leading ?); invalid keys are emitted as invalid_<...> with invalid characters replaced by _.

For more details, see docs/Tracing.md.

Example: Logged Download Flow (Ktor)

Below is a code snippet that triggers a download when a button is pressed, fetches JSON via Ktor, parses it, and logs each important step with KmperTrace.

@Serializable
data class Profile(val name: String, val downloads: Int)

@Composable
fun DownloadButton(client: HttpClient, url: String) {
val scope = rememberCoroutineScope()
Button(onClick = {
scope.launch { downloadAndParse(client, url) }
}) {
Text("Download profile")
}
}

private suspend fun downloadAndParse(client: HttpClient, url: String) =
traceSpan(component = "Downloader", operation = "DownloadProfile") {
val log = Log.forComponent("Downloader")
log.i { "Button tapped: start download $url" }

val bytes: ByteArray = traceSpan("FetchHttp") {
log.i { "HTTP GET $url" }
val b: ByteArray = client.get(url).body()
log.d { "Fetched ${b.size} bytes" }
b
}

val payload = traceSpan("ParseJson") {
log.d { "Decoding JSON payload" }
runCatching {
Json.decodeFromString<Profile>(bytes.decodeToString())
}.getOrElse { error ->
log.e(error) { "Failed to decode profile" }
throw error
}
}

log.i { "Parsed profile name=${payload.name} downloads=${payload.downloads}" }
payload
}

Every log line inside traceSpan carries trace/span IDs; the CLI can reconstruct the full flow when you collect logs from your app.

Sample output from the CLI will look like this in case of success:

trace 1234abcd...
└─ Downloader.DownloadProfile (85 ms)
├─ ℹ️ 12:00:01.234 Downloader: Button tapped: start download https://api.example.com/profile.json
├─ Downloader.FetchHttp (42 ms)
│  ├─ ℹ️ 12:00:01.235 Downloader: HTTP GET https://api.example.com/profile.json
│  └─ 🔍 12:00:01.277 Downloader: Fetched 512 bytes
├─ Downloader.ParseJson (18 ms)
│  └─ 🔍 12:00:01.295 Downloader: Decoding JSON payload
└─ ℹ️ 12:00:01.303 Downloader: Parsed profile name=Alex downloads=42

or it will look like this in case of failure:

trace 1234abcd...
└─ Downloader.DownloadProfile (65 ms)
├─ ℹ️ 12:00:01.234 Downloader: Button tapped: start download https://api.example.com/profile.json
├─ Downloader.FetchHttp (40 ms)
│  ├─ ℹ️ 12:00:01.235 Downloader: HTTP GET https://api.example.com/profile.json
│  └─ 🔍 12:00:01.275 Downloader: Fetched 512 bytes
└─ ❌ Downloader.ParseJson (23 ms)
├─ 🔍 12:00:01.295 Downloader: Decoding JSON payload
└─ ❌ 12:00:01.318 Downloader: span end: Downloader.ParseJson
java.lang.IllegalStateException: Failed to decode profile
at kotlinx.serialization.json.JsonDecoder....
at dev.goquick.kmpertrace.sampleapp.DownloadButtonKt.decodeProfile(DownloadButton.kt:42)
at dev.goquick.kmpertrace.sampleapp.DownloadButtonKt.downloadAndParse(DownloadButton.kt:32)
at ...

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Status

KmperTrace is early‑stage and APIs may change before 1.0. Feedback, issues, and ideas for integrations (sinks, exporters, IDE plugins) are very welcome.