Domain-Based C++ Logging With Nova
### Introducing Nova - A Deterministic C++ Logging Library With Domain-Based Routing
Repository:
https://github.com/kmac-13/nova/Benchmarks:
https://github.com/kmac-13/nova/blob/main/docs/BENCHMARKS.mdI am pleased to announce the initial release of **Nova** - a modern C++ logging library focused on deterministic behavior, compile-time configurability, and flexible domain-based routing for systems ranging from hosted platforms down to bare-metal and safety-critical environments.
### Why Another Logging Library?
There are already several quality C++ logging libraries available. However, most logging libraries organize routing and filtering around severity levels and rely on global logger configuration or runtime string-based logging categories. Engineers are often forced to encode subsystem behavior into a limited set of severity levels while also considering which thresholds will be enabled in production. This also leads to situations where enabling debug logging for one subsystem effectively requires enabling debug logging across unrelated areas of the application.
Nova instead treats logging domains as compile-time types, allowing logging configuration and routing to directly reflect application structure rather than forcing subsystems into global severity categories.
Domains can represent subsystems, modules, interfaces, classes, libraries, or any other domain-specific concept, and each domain can be independently enabled, disabled, or routed without reliance on shared global configuration. Because domains are independent types rather than shared string identifiers, libraries can define their own logging domains without interfering with application or third-party logging configuration.
* type-defined logging domains - log against subsystems, modules, classes, libraries, or any other concept
* compile-time elimination of disabled domains - language-guaranteed in C++17, optimiser-dependent in C++11/14
* compile-time routing - avoids reliance on global logger registries or shared runtime configuration
Additional goals of the library include:
* simple pipeline and extensible API
* deterministic behavior - no heap, no exceptions, no RTTI
* support for platforms ranging from hosted systems down to bare-metal
* fast enough for demanding real-time and multithreaded workloads
Nova also includes Flare, an async-signal-safe crash and forensic logging component that writes structured diagnostic records directly to disk from signal handlers - without heap allocation, locks, or non-signal-safe C++ runtime features.
### Example
cpp
#include <nova.h>
// define a domain (can be any type)
struct MotionPlanner {};
// configure the domain with a name (MOTION), enabled state (true), and clock type (steadyNanosecs)
NOVA_LOGGER_TRAITS( MotionPlanner, MOTION, true, kmac::nova::TimestampHelper::steadyNanosecs );
int main()
{
// configure motion planner sink as mpSink
...
// bind the mpSink to the MotionPlanner logging domain
kmac::nova::ScopedConfigurator config;
config.bind< MotionPlanner >( &mpSink );
// log
NOVA_LOG( MotionPlanner ) << "Planning trajectory...";
}
Here we can see that the `MotionPlanner` domain is defined, the traits for the domain are configured, a target sink is bound to the domain, and logging is performed. In this example, the domain is a simple, empty struct, but a domain can be any type, including interface, abstract, or concrete classes. A domain can even be a specific class, and logging can be limited to the scope of that class.
Using types as logging domains enables compile-time routing, strong subsystem separation, and per-domain configuration and enablement. Disabled domains can be eliminated entirely by the compiler, and type names prevent the silent runtime failures that string-based routing can introduce.
Additionally, per-domain control means that enabling verbose logging for one subsystem has no effect on any other - there is no shared severity threshold to raise or lower across the entire application just to see
