Audit log

Wagtail provides a mechanism to log actions performed on its objects. Common activities such as page creation, update, deletion, locking and unlocking, revision scheduling and privacy changes are automatically logged at the model level.

The Wagtail admin uses the action log entries to provide a site-wide and page specific history of changes. It uses a registry of ‘actions’ that provide additional context for the logged action.

The audit log-driven Page history replaces the revisions list page, but provide a filter for revision-specific entries.

Note

The audit log does not replace revisions.

The wagtail.log_actions.log function can be used to add logging to your own code.

log(instance, action, user=None, uuid=None, title=None, data=None)

Adds an entry to the audit log.

Parameters:
  • instance – The model instance that the action is performed on

  • action – The code name for the action being performed. This can be one of the names listed below, or a custom action defined through the register_log_actions hook.

  • user – Optional - the user initiating the action. For actions logged within an admin view, this defaults to the logged-in user.

  • uuid – Optional - log entries given the same UUID indicates that they occurred as part of the same user action (for example a page being immediately published on creation).

  • title – The string representation of the instance being logged. By default, Wagtail will attempt to use the instance’s str representation, or get_admin_display_title for page objects.

  • data – Optional - a dictionary of additional JSON-serialisable data to store against the log entry

Note

When adding logging, you need to log the action or actions that happen to the object. For example, if the user creates and publishes a page, there should be a “create” entry and a “publish” entry. Or, if the user copies a published page and chooses to keep it published, there should be a “copy” and a “publish” entry for new page.


    # mypackage/views.py
    from wagtail.log_actions import log

    def copy_for_translation(page):
        # ...
        page.copy(log_action='mypackage.copy_for_translation')

    def my_method(request, page):
        # ..
        # Manually log an action
        data = {
            'make': {'it': 'so'}
        }
        log(
            instance=page, action='mypackage.custom_action', data=data
        )

Changed in version 2.15: The log function was added. Previously, logging was only implemented for pages, and invoked through the PageLogEntry.objects.log_action method.

Log actions provided by Wagtail

Action

Notes

wagtail.create

The object was created

wagtail.edit

The object was edited (for pages, saved as draft)

wagtail.delete

The object was deleted. Will only surface in the Site History for administrators

wagtail.publish

The page was published

wagtail.publish.schedule

Draft is scheduled for publishing

wagtail.publish.scheduled

Draft published via publish_scheduled management command

wagtail.schedule.cancel

Draft scheduled for publishing cancelled via “Cancel scheduled publish”

wagtail.unpublish

The page was unpublished

wagtail.unpublish.scheduled

Page unpublished via publish_scheduled management command

wagtail.lock

Page was locked

wagtail.unlock

Page was unlocked

wagtail.moderation.approve

The revision was approved for moderation

wagtail.moderation.reject

The revision was rejected

wagtail.rename

A page was renamed

wagtail.revert

The page was reverted to a previous draft

wagtail.copy

The page was copied to a new location

wagtail.copy_for_translation

The page was copied into a new locale for translation

wagtail.move

The page was moved to a new location

wagtail.reorder

The order of the page under it’s parent was changed

wagtail.view_restriction.create

The page was restricted

wagtail.view_restriction.edit

The page restrictions were updated

wagtail.view_restriction.delete

The page restrictions were removed

wagtail.workflow.start

The page was submitted for moderation in a Workflow

wagtail.workflow.approve

The draft was approved at a Workflow Task

wagtail.workflow.reject

The draft was rejected, and changes requested at a Workflow Task

wagtail.workflow.resume

The draft was resubmitted to the workflow

wagtail.workflow.cancel

The workflow was cancelled

Log context

The wagtail.log_actions module provides a context manager to simplify code that logs a large number of actions, such as import scripts:

from wagtail.log_actions import LogContext

with LogContext(user=User.objects.get(username='admin')):
    # ...
    log(page, 'wagtail.edit')
    # ...
    log(page, 'wagtail.publish')

All log calls within the block will then be attributed to the specified user, and assigned a common UUID. A log context is created automatically for views within the Wagtail admin.

Log models

Logs are stored in the database via the models wagtail.models.PageLogEntry (for actions on Page instances) and wagtail.models.ModelLogEntry (for actions on all other models). Page logs are stored in their own model to ensure that reports can be filtered according to the current user’s permissions, which could not be done efficiently with a generic foreign key.

If your own models have complex reporting requirements that would make ModelLogEntry unsuitable, you can configure them to be logged to their own log model; this is done by subclassing the abstract wagtail.models.BaseLogEntry model, and registering that model with the log registry’s register_model method:

from myapp.models import Sprocket, SprocketLogEntry
# here SprocketLogEntry is a subclass of BaseLogEntry

@hooks.register('register_log_actions')
def sprocket_log_model(actions):
    actions.register_model(Sprocket, SprocketLogEntry)