[Bug]: Error.cause not logged correctly

[lexctk]

🔎 Search Terms

Error.cause, cause property

The problem

Error.cause is not logged correctly.
For reference. Error.cause was added to es2022.

This seems to have been fixed in logform @#winstonjs/logform#226, but not in winston.

What version of Winston presents the issue?

v3.13.0

What version of Node are you using?

v21.6.2

If this worked in a previous version of Winston, which was it?

No response

Minimum Working Example

const log = winston.createLogger({
	format: format.combine(
		format.errors({ cause: true }),
		format.json(),
	),
	transports: [ new transports.Console() ],
});

log.error(new Error("I'm an error", { cause: new Error("with a cause") }));

// {"cause":{},"level":"error","message":"I'm an error"}

Additional information

No response

[lexctk]

The current workaround is to pass cause as a string, which seems to work

log.error(new Error("I'm an error", { cause: "with a string cause" }));

// {"cause":"with a string cause","level":"error","message":"I'm an error"}

but defeats the purpose, eg, a more common use case:

try {
  connectToDatabase();
} catch (err) {
  throw new Error("Connecting to database failed.", { cause: err });
}

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Error/cause

[jazanne]

this is honestly such a huge drag right now

[DABH]

This has been shipped in winston 3.16.0 🚀

[jazanne]

@DABH thank you!