In backend systems, one of the most common debugging workflows is also one of the most frustrating:

tracing a single request across multiple services using logs.

You usually end up jumping between:

log files on different servers

Docker containers

SSH sessions into machines

repeated grep commands

and manually reconstructing what actually happened

grep is powerful, but it only gives you lines, not the story behind a request.

That gap is what led me to build reqlog .

Table of Contents

What is reqlog

Core usecases

Architecture overview

Performance decisions

Transport layer abstraction

Why this matters

reqlog-ui (optional companion)

Who is reqlog for

What reqlog is NOT

Closing thoughts

Repo

What is reqlog?

reqlog is a Go-based CLI tool for tracing request flows across distributed logs.

It allows you to search logs using keys like request_id , trace_id , or any custom event key and reconstruct a chronological timeline of events.

It currently supports:

File-based logs

Docker container…