CDKTF_LOG_FILE_DIRECTORY: 'cdktf init' errors out with 'Unknown argument' when this environment variable is set

[ShaheenK27]

Actual Behavior

• If CDKTF_LOG_FILE_DIRECTORY is set on the system, then the cdktf init command errors out with the following message

  • Unknown argument: logFileDirectory

  [The environment variable is specified with a path of an existing folder (with sufficient read/write access)]

• However, if this environment variable is set after cdktf init is executed, then:

  • All the other commands (get, synth, deploy, diff, destroy, etc.) support CDKTF_LOG_FILE_DIRECTORY & successfully log the content in the specified directory.

Expected Behavior

• Is it intentional that CDKTF_LOG_FILE_DIRECTORY is not supported during init & it does not allow logging to a specific directory? If so:

  • Is it because logging is solely for debugging CDKTF applications, so we want to save the logs only after the application is created to debug it [Reference: Debugging]

  • Or is it because we want project-specific logs?

    • As CDKTF allows managing different projects, streaming logs from two different CDKTF projects to the same file is not a valid use case.

    • Therefore, the cdktf init does not stream logs and expects us to configure logging to separate directories for each application after initialization.

Steps to Reproduce

Step 1: export CDKTF_LOG_FILE_DIRECTORY=<path/to/logging/directory/>

Step 2: In an empty directory, run cdktf init --template=typescript command.
[This returns an 'Unknown argument' error]

Versions

1. language: typescript
2. cdktf-cli: 0.17.3
3. npm: 8.19.4
4. node: 16.20.1
5. terraform: 1.4.5

Providers

No response

Gist

No response

Possible Solutions

No response

Workarounds

No response

Anything Else?

No response

References

No response

Help Wanted

• I'm interested in contributing a fix myself

Community Note

• Please vote on this issue by adding a 👍 reaction to the original issue to help the community and maintainers prioritize this request
• Please do not leave "+1" or other comments that do not add relevant new information or questions, they generate extra noise for issue followers and do not help prioritize the request
• If you are interested in working on this issue or have submitted a pull request, please leave a comment

[github-actions]

I'm going to lock this issue because it has been closed for 30 days. This helps our maintainers find and focus on the active issues. If you've found a problem that seems similar to this, please open a new issue and complete the issue template so we can capture all the details necessary to investigate further.