How I Debug Logs Across Services (and Why I Built a CLI Tool)

A while back at work, I was debugging an issue across a few services. I had the request_id, but the logs were scattered across different files. Not every environment I work in has full tracing or centralized logging set up — especially local or staging setups — so I often rely on raw logs. The usual workflow looked something like this: open multiple terminals run grep on each service copy the same ID again and again try to mentally piece together what happened It worked… but it was slow and honestly pretty frustrating. I kept thinking — there has to be a simpler way to do this. Logs are usually: spread across multiple services or files in different formats (plain text, JSON, sometimes pretty logs) hard to follow in order Even when you do find the right logs, understanding the full request flow takes time. During live debugging, it gets worse — you’re trying to figure things out quickly while jumping between files and commands. What I Wanted A simpler workflow that lets me: search by a