WinGet Log Viewer

A VS Code extension that makes reading WinGet diagnostic log files fast and pleasant.

Features

Rich log viewer (WebView editor)

Opens automatically for WinGet-*.log and WinGetCOM-*.log files. Use the "Open in WinGet Log Viewer" command (or right-click any .log file in the Explorer) to open any log file in the viewer.

Channel color badges — each of the nine WinGet channels gets a distinct color:

Subchannel detection — when a sub-component routes its log lines through a parent channel, the original [CHAN] tag appears at the start of the message. The viewer detects this and renders it as a secondary subchannel badge.

Dynamic filters — toggle individual channels and subchannels on/off with checkboxes. Use "All" / "None" quick links per section.

Quick text search — type in the Search box to live-filter visible lines.

Severity highlighting — rows that contain error/warning keywords get a colored left border and message highlighting.

Time delta — enable "Show time delta" to see the elapsed time between consecutive visible lines (+Xms / +Xs). Great for spotting slow operations.

Jump to error — use the ↑ Error / ↓ Error buttons to navigate between error and critical log lines.

Follow mode — enable "Follow (live tail)" to auto-scroll as the log file grows on disk. New line count is shown briefly in the status bar.

Export filtered — "Copy visible lines" sends all currently visible (filtered) raw log lines to the clipboard.

Wrap long lines — enable "Wrap long lines" to prevent horizontal scrolling on very long messages.

Syntax highlighting (standard editor)

When a WinGet log file is opened in VS Code's standard text editor, the TextMate grammar provides coloring for timestamps, channel badges, subchannels, and error/warning keywords — no additional setup required.

Log format

YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS.mmm <L> [CHAN] message
YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS.mmm <L> [CHAN] [SUBCHAN] message    ← subchannel variant

Where <L> is an optional single-letter severity marker: V=Verbose, I=Info, W=Warning, E=Error, C=Critical. Older log files without the marker are also supported.

Development

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+
• VS Code 1.85+

Build

cd tools/WinGetLogViewer
npm install
npm run compile

Run / Debug

1. Open tools/WinGetLogViewer/ as a workspace in VS Code.
2. Press F5 — this launches the Extension Development Host.
3. Open any WinGet-*.log or WinGetCOM-*.log file; the viewer opens automatically.

Package

npm run package

This produces winget-log-viewer-<version>.vsix. Install it via Extensions: Install from VSIX… or:

code --install-extension winget-log-viewer-0.1.0.vsix

Keyboard shortcuts

Roadmap / ideas

• Per-session filter presets (save/restore named filter combinations)
• Fold/collapse groups of lines by channel
• Correlation ID linking (when GUIDs appear in messages)