Add detailed logs from the MCP Server

[anannya03]

What does this PR do?

Adds a unified, configurable logging system to help users and developers diagnose issues, inspect MCP protocol activity, and debug tool execution without requiring complex tools like PerfView or dotnet-trace.
This enables clear, actionable visibility into MCP Server behavior through configurable console and file logging.

Key Changes

• Enhanced ServiceStartCommand – Added ASP.NET Core–compliant logging configuration with CLI, environment, and appsettings hierarchy (CLI → Env → Config → Default).

• Custom FileLoggerProvider – Added file logging with {timestamp} and {pid} placeholders and automatic directory creation.

• New CLI options:

1. --debug: Enables debug-level console logging.
2. --log-level: Sets log verbosity (Trace, Debug, Information, etc.).
3. --log-file: Writes logs to a specified file.

• Environment variables:

1. AZMCP_LOG_LEVEL, AZMCP_LOG_FILE (custom)
2. LOGGING__LOGLEVEL__DEFAULT, LOGGING__FILE__PATH (ASP.NET Core standard).

• Routes logs to STDERR to keep MCP protocol output clean.

• Updated live-test.yml with environment variables for automated logging

GitHub issue number?

#142

Pre-merge Checklist

• Required for All PRs
  • Read contribution guidelines
  • PR title clearly describes the change
  • Commit history is clean with descriptive messages (cleanup guide)
  • Added comprehensive tests for new/modified functionality
  • Updated servers/Azure.Mcp.Server/CHANGELOG.md and/or servers/Fabric.Mcp.Server/CHANGELOG.md for product changes (features, bug fixes, UI/UX, updated dependencies)

[Copilot]

Pull Request Overview

This PR enables detailed MCP Server logging for live test visibility by adding comprehensive logging configuration options. The changes allow tests to capture logs through both verbose stderr output and file-based logging without requiring additional debugging tools.

Key changes:

• Added configurable logging levels and verbose mode through command line options and environment variables
• Implemented file-based logging with placeholder support for timestamps and process IDs
• Enhanced logging configuration for both STDIO and HTTP server modes

Reviewed Changes

Copilot reviewed 4 out of 4 changed files in this pull request and generated 2 comments.

File	Description
SimpleFileLoggerProvider.cs	New lightweight file logger implementation for structured log output
ServiceStartOptions.cs	Added logging configuration properties (LogLevel, Verbose, LogFile)
ServiceOptionDefinitions.cs	Defined new command line options for logging controls
ServiceStartCommand.cs	Integrated logging options with environment variable support and enhanced logging setup

Comments suppressed due to low confidence (1)

core/Azure.Mcp.Core/src/Services/Logging/SimpleFileLoggerProvider.cs:1

• The Verbose option should be of type Option instead of Option<string?> since it represents a boolean flag. The DefaultValueFactory should return a boolean value false instead of the string "false".

// Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation.

[conniey]

We can have a conversation offline if it is easier but I was hoping that we wouldn't have to add these switches.

Using a custom ILogger, we can leverage existing infrastructure to output logs. The user experience here is to do azmcp.exe server start --log-level debug. But this only applies to the logger we wrote, the settings won't also apply to the "EventSourceLogger" or any other ILogger.

I was hoping that an end user would be able to do something like:

set Logging__LogLevel__Default=Debug
./azmcp.exe server start

And this log level would apply to your new logger, and also the EventSourceLogger, any other Console logger, possibly a file logger if there is one.

Or they can use the same configuration system to be more granular about their logging. There's a bigger example here: Configure Logging

The bonus would be that they wouldn't have to learn something new about our logging because it uses the same configuration as other .NET loggers.

[conniey]

Or if you used the [ProviderAlias("AzureMcpDebugLogger")] or something, they could configure our logger via:

set Logging__AzureMcpDebugLogger__LogLevel=Debug