Reporting & Observability

Sprint 4.5 introduces a unified reporter so every kernel module emits structured telemetry through LogLayer. Instead of sprinkling console.log calls across the codebase, you now create reporters and route messages through transports that understand namespaces, levels, and context metadata.

Why reporters?

• Single source of truth – Actions, policies, and registry plugins rely on the same transport configuration.
• Structured payloads – Hooks receive { message, context, timestamp } so downstream consumers stay typed.
• Environment aware – Console logging is skipped in production, while hooks remain active for instrumentation.
• Lint enforcement – The @kernel/no-console-in-kernel rule blocks accidental console.* usage in core code.

Creating a reporter

import { createReporter } from '@wpkernel/core/reporter';

const reporter = createReporter({ namespace: 'showcase', channel: 'all' });

reporter.info('Action started', { requestId: 'act_42' });
reporter.error('Save failed', { error });

• namespace controls the prefix for console output and the hook name (showcase.reporter.error).
• channel chooses transports. Use 'all' to enable both console and WordPress hooks.
• child() lets you create nested reporters without redefining options.

In actions

The action runtime automatically provisions a reporter scoped to the detected namespace. You can call ctx.reporter.* inside your action implementations:

async function CreatePost(ctx, input) {
	ctx.reporter.debug('Creating post', { input });
	try {
		const post = await postResource.create(input);
		ctx.reporter.info('Post created', { postId: post.id });
		return post;
	} catch (error) {
		ctx.reporter.error('Post creation failed', { error });
		throw error;
	}
}

When an action throws, the reporter also feeds the kernelEventsPlugin() bridge so failures show up as core/notices alerts.

In policies

definePolicy() now accepts debug: true to enable reporter output. The reporter shares the same namespace so hook listeners can correlate events across the stack:

const policy = definePolicy(rules, {
	namespace: 'showcase',
	debug: true,
});

Without debug, the policy reporter becomes a no-op and avoids console noise.

Registry integration

configureKernel() wires kernel middleware into an @wordpress/data registry:

import { configureKernel } from '@wpkernel/core';

const registry = createRegistry();
const kernel = configureKernel({
	namespace: 'showcase',
	registry,
	reporter: createReporter({ namespace: 'showcase', channel: 'all' }),
});

• Installs the action middleware so dispatched envelopes execute kernel actions.
• Registers the events plugin which converts wpk.action.error into core/notices entries and logs via the reporter.
• Accepts additional middleware through the middleware option.

Call kernel.teardown() when hot reloading or tearing down tests to remove middleware and hook listeners.

Resource telemetry

Resources now emit cache and transport logs through the same reporter tree. When you call resource.invalidate() the framework records cache.invalidate.request and cache.invalidate.summary events (along with match/miss debug entries) using a kernel-scoped reporter child. Transport operations inherit the reporter metadata as well, so fetchList, fetch, create, update, and remove generate transport.request, transport.response, or transport.error messages with correlated request IDs. Forward the reporter to your logging pipeline (Sentry, Datadog, etc.) to correlate cache invalidations and REST requests with upstream actions and policies.

Linting: no console in kernel

console.* calls are forbidden in packages/core/src outside the reporter module. Use the reporter everywhere else. The ESLint rule runs automatically, so commits that bypass the reporter will fail linting.

Migration tips

• Replace console.log('[wp-kernel]', msg) with reporter.info(msg).
• When porting legacy modules, create a scoped reporter and pass it down instead of injecting raw console objects.
• To debug locally without polluting logs, use child() to create granular namespaces (kernel.debug.imports).

By routing logs through the reporter you get consistent formatting, hook emission, and future bridge support for free.