Add option to retrieve logs with timestamps in the API

[lastarc]

Currently the API for fetching application logs returns only the logs with no timestamps, and there's no query parameter to enable them.
The helper which API uses doesn't have the same flexibility as the one for web UI.
It would be great to have such an option.

[Jacxk]

This would be a nice addition, I'm currently working on a PR to add logs to databases and services and making a separate endpoint to get the deployment logs, having it on the actual deployment object is not great since those logs can grow significantly and slow down requests.

I noticed that there's sometimes timestamps included in the logs of certain apps, which is kind of weird.

[djsisson]

depending on the log driver you are using in docker (usually json)

it will capture in this format:

{
  "log": "Log line is here\n",
  "stream": "stdout",
  "time": "2025-07-29T15:44:13.015570542Z"
}

however some services, will also log as json, which would also include a timestamp. so you can end up with:

{
  "log": {
              "level": "fatal",
              "msg": "Error running migrations",
              "time": "2025-07-29T15:44:13Z"
             },
  "stream": "stdout",
  "time": "2025-07-29T15:44:13.015570542Z"
}

so its not weird that you still get timestamps, as a lot of services will log with timestamp included.

when using docker logs, you can just add -t

docker container logs traefik_traefik.1.f2e8msmyuj9t3im3gz1pi8wgv -t

this would include the timestamps from the actual log file, but since 'most' services already timestamp their logs its usually not needed.

so yes you can add a toggle to add -t for when services do not already include a timestamp if you want to make a change.

[Jacxk]

I see, that makes sense. I had a feeling the logged line already included a timestamp then the toggle would add their own since when turned on they had different formats.

[Jacxk]

I opened a PR #6293 introducing an optional query param show_timestamps (false by default). I also added the ability to get the logs from databases and services. Hopefully this makes it into prod, I really need these changes for one of my projects.