Getting started with Logthread

Sign up, create a workspace, create an ingest key and send your first logs, traces or metrics. This takes a few minutes: the app walks you through the same steps under Connect a source.

Sign up and create a workspace#

1. Open the app and choose Create workspace.
2. Enter your name, a Workspace name, your work email and a password.
3. Open the link in the verification email we send you. Your workspace is ready as soon as your address is verified and storage is set up; the setup checklist shows both.

A workspace holds your data, your team, your keys and your plan. Its data region is shown under Settings as Data region.

One workspace per customer#

If you run systems for several customers, give each customer its own workspace. Each workspace has its own:

• data;
• retention;
• ingest keys and API keys;
• members, alerts, dashboards and usage.

Nothing is shared between workspaces.

• Create one: each workspace is created with Create workspace, using an address you control for that customer.
• Add your team: invite your team to each workspace from Team. One person can belong to many workspaces.
• Switch workspaces: use the workspace menu in the top bar.
• Separate keys: create separate ingest keys per customer and per system, so each can be revoked on its own and its volume shows separately under Usage.

Create an ingest key#

An ingest key lets your services send data. It can write and can never read anything.

1. Open Keys in the sidebar, under Developers (or step 1 of Connect a source).
2. Choose Create ingest key and name it after the service or environment, for example production-checkout.
3. Copy the key now. It is shown once; only a digest is kept, so a lost key cannot be recovered. Choose I have saved the key when it is stored safely.

You need the Member role or higher. A workspace can have up to 20 active ingest keys. See Ingest keys and API keys for revoking and rotating keys.

Send your first data#

Every HTTP and gRPC route uses the same header, Authorization: Bearer <ingest key> (or X-Logthread-Key: <ingest key> when a proxy strips Authorization; see Send data), and a Logthread endpoint. The endpoints for your workspace are listed under Settings in Endpoints and in step 2 of Connect a source.

Send a test event with curl:

export LOGTHREAD_INGEST_KEY="<your ingest key>"
curl -X POST 'https://ingest.logthread.com/v1/ndjson' \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $LOGTHREAD_INGEST_KEY" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/x-ndjson' \
  --data-binary @- <<'EOT'
{"service":"my-app","severity":"INFO","body":"Hello, Logthread"}
{"service":"my-app","severity":"ERROR","body":"Something failed"}
EOT

Connect a source builds the snippet for your stack with your service name, environment and extra attributes filled in.

See your first data#

Step 3 of Connect a source listens for data and says when the first record arrives. Then:

• Explore searches and charts your logs.
• Live tail streams events as they arrive.
• Press Ctrl+K (⌘K on a Mac) to jump to a page, run an action or search these docs; doc results open in a new tab.
• Traces and Metrics show OpenTelemetry traces and metrics from the same key.
• Home summarises ingest, errors and new patterns.

Next: Explore and live tail, Dashboards and Invite a teammate.

Share what you see with your team#

Every screen keeps what you are looking at in its address: the query and filters in Explore, the selected trace, the chosen metric, the service selected on the map, an open dashboard and its time range. To share it, use Share (the share icon in the top bar):

• Share with teammates sends the view to people in your workspace. Search them by name or email, pick one or more, add a note and choose the exact window or the live range. Each one gets a small notification in the top-right corner of Logthread with Open and Dismiss, and an email with the link unless you turn that off. A log search is also added to their Explore tabs. Everything shared with you stays under Shared with you (the inbox icon in the top bar) for 30 days. A private dashboard cannot be opened by others, so Logthread says so and, if you may edit it, offers to make it visible to the team as you send.
• Copy link to this view turns a relative range such as "Last 1 hour" into the exact window you are looking at, so your teammate sees the same data even if they open it tomorrow.
• Copy live link keeps the relative range, so the link always shows the latest data.

The link opens in the right workspace for teammates who belong to several. Anyone signed out is asked to sign in first (with a password or single sign-on) and then lands on the same view. Only members of the workspace can open it.

The time range you pick is also remembered as you move between screens, so switching from Traces to Metrics or the service map keeps the window you chose. A link that carries its own range always opens with that range.

Next: send data from your stack, then follow the whole path in Get the full value from Logthread.