Embedded JSON audit log schema

Available in legacy Mattermost Enterprise Edition E20

The audit log JSON schema functions as a standardized blueprint or schematic that consistently defines how a single event should appear when being written to the audit log, including: field names, data types, objects, and structure.

An outline of the JSON audit logging schema is provided below. See the JSON data model for additional details.

{
    "timestamp": "",       // Event time
    "status": "",          // Success or failure of the audited event or activity
    "event_name": "",      // Logged event name
    "error": {             // Error if status = fail
        "status_code": 0,
        "description": ""
    },
    "actor": {             // The user performing the action
        "user_id": ""           // Unique identifier of the event user
        "session_id": ""        // Unique session identifier of the event user
        "client": ""            // User agent of the client/platform in use by the event user
        "ip_address": ""        // IPv4/IPv6 IP address of the event user
    },
    "event": {             // Event-specific data
        "parameters": {}        // Map containing parameters of the audited event or activity
        "prior_state": {}       // Pre-event state of the object
        "resulting_state": {}   // Post-event state of the object
        "object_type": ""       // Object targeted by the event or activity
    },
    "meta": {
        "api_path": "",         // API endpoint interacted with for event or activity
        "cluster_id": ""        // Unique identifier of the cluster in use by the event user
    }
}

Audit log record examples

Update user preferences

{
    "timestamp": "2022-08-17 20:37:52.846 +01:00",
    "event_name": "updatePreferences",
    "status": "success",
    "actor": {
        "user_id": "aw8ehkwaziytzry1qqxi9tsqwh",
        "session_id": "kth3jyadc3b1p84kbz6y3o75na",
        "client": "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/15.6 Safari/605.1.15",
        "ip_address": "192.168.0.169"
    },
    "event": {
        "parameters": {},
        "prior_state": {},
        "resulting_state": {},
        "object_type": ""
    },
    "meta": {
        "api_path": "/api/v4/users/aw8ehkwaziytzry1qqxi9tsqwh/preferences",
        "cluster_id": "8dxdbfx6fpdwtki1z6n8whtkho"
    },
    "error": {}
}

JSON data model

Name	Type	Description
timestamp	int64	Date/time when event or activity has taken place. Mattermost currently supports three log formats: plain, JSON, and GELF. Plain log format uses RFC3339 by default. See the plain log format configuration documentation for supported options. JSON log format uses RFC3339 by default. See the JSON log format configuration documentation for supported options. GELF log format uses unixtime. See the GELF log format configuration documentation for supported options.
event_name	string	Unique name and identifier of the event type taking place (e.g. `getLogs` `requestRenewalLink`, `createTeam`, `createChannel`, `deleteChannel`, or `extendSessionExpiry`).
status	string	Success or failure of the audited event.
event	EventData	Event parameters and object states.
actor	EventActor	User involved with the event.
meta	EventMeta	Related event metadata.
error	EventError	The resulting error if the status is in a failed state.

EventData

Field name	Data type	Description
parameters	map	Payload and parameters being processed as part of the request.
prior_state	map	Prior state of the entity being modified. `null` if there was no prior state.
resulting_state	map	Resulting entity after creating or modifying it.
object_type	string	String representation of the entity type (e.g. post)

EventActor

Field name	Data type	Description
user_id	string	Unique identifier of the event actor.
session_id	string	Unique session identifier of the event actor.
client	string	User agent of the client/platform in use by the event actor.
ip_address	string	IPv4/IPv6 IP address of the event actor.

EventMeta

Field name	Data type	Description
api_path	string	The REST endpoint which caused the event.
cluster_id	integer	Cluster identifier.

EventError

Field name	Data type	Description
description	string	(Optional) Error description.
status_code	integer	(Optional) Error status code.