---
title: "otelcol.encoding.jsonlog | Grafana Alloy documentation"
description: "Learn about otelcol.encoding.jsonlog"
---

> For a curated documentation index, see [llms.txt](/llms.txt). For the complete documentation index, see [llms-full.txt](/llms-full.txt).

# `otelcol.encoding.jsonlog`

> **EXPERIMENTAL**: This is an [experimental](/docs/release-life-cycle/) component. Experimental components are subject to frequent breaking changes, and may be removed with no equivalent replacement. To enable and use an experimental component, you must set the `stability.level` [flag](/docs/alloy/next/reference/cli/run/) to `experimental`.

`otelcol.encoding.jsonlog` encodes and decodes OpenTelemetry log records as JSON. It exposes a handler that compatible `otelcol` components can use to marshal and unmarshal logs.

> Note
> 
> `otelcol.encoding.jsonlog` is a wrapper over the upstream OpenTelemetry Collector [`jsonlogencodingextension`](https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-collector-contrib/tree/v0.161.0/extension/encoding/jsonlogencodingextension) extension. Grafana Labs redirects bug reports or feature requests to the upstream repository when necessary.

You can specify multiple `otelcol.encoding.jsonlog` components by giving them different labels.

## Usage

Alloy ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy

```alloy
otelcol.encoding.jsonlog "<LABEL>" {
}
```

## Arguments

You can use the following arguments with `otelcol.encoding.jsonlog`:

Expand table

| Name         | Type     | Description                                 | Default  | Required |
|--------------|----------|---------------------------------------------|----------|----------|
| `array_mode` | `bool`   | Whether to encode and decode JSON arrays.   | `true`   | no       |
| `mode`       | `string` | How to marshal fields from each log record. | `"body"` | no       |

The `array_mode` argument controls the JSON document shape. When `array_mode` is `true`, unmarshaled input must be a JSON array of objects, and marshaled output is a JSON array. When `array_mode` is `false`, unmarshaled input can be a single JSON object or a stream of concatenated JSON objects, including newline-delimited JSON. Marshaled output contains one JSON object per line when `array_mode` is `false` and there are multiple log records.

The `mode` argument supports the following values:

- `body` marshals each log record’s body and requires the body to be a map.
- `body_with_inline_attributes` marshals each log record as an object containing its `body`, `resourceAttributes`, and `logAttributes` fields when those fields aren’t empty.

The `mode` argument affects marshaling only. During unmarshaling, the component stores each JSON object as a log record body.

## Blocks

The `otelcol.encoding.jsonlog` component doesn’t support any blocks. You can configure this component with arguments.

## Exported fields

The following fields are exported and can be referenced by other components:

Expand table

| Name      | Type                       | Description                                                                       |
|-----------|----------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| `handler` | `capsule(otelcol.Handler)` | A handler that compatible `otelcol` components can use to encode and decode logs. |

## Component health

`otelcol.encoding.jsonlog` is only reported as unhealthy if given an invalid configuration.

## Debug information

`otelcol.encoding.jsonlog` doesn’t expose any component-specific debug information.

## Debug metrics

`otelcol.encoding.jsonlog` doesn’t expose any component-specific debug metrics.

## Examples

### `otelcol.receiver.awss3`

This example uses `otelcol.encoding.jsonlog` to decode newline-delimited JSON log records from S3 objects with keys that end in `.jsonl`. The receiver forwards the decoded logs to `otelcol.exporter.debug`:

Alloy ![Copy code to clipboard](/media/images/icons/icon-copy-small-2.svg) Copy

```alloy
otelcol.encoding.jsonlog "default" {
	array_mode = false
}

otelcol.receiver.awss3 "default" {
	start_time = "2024-01-01 01:00"
	end_time   = "2024-01-02"

	s3downloader {
		region    = "us-west-1"
		s3_bucket = "mybucket"
		s3_prefix = "logs"
	}

	encoding {
		extension = otelcol.encoding.jsonlog.default.handler
		suffix    = ".jsonl"
	}

	output {
		logs = [otelcol.exporter.debug.default.input]
	}
}

otelcol.exporter.debug "default" {}
```