Is there a way to add custom logger for API calls made through Semantic Kernel?

[prajwalpyakurelMS]

We would like to have our custom logger log events for api calls made through semantic kernel (OpenAI, plugins/tools, etc).
Is there a way to achieve this using filter or something similar?
We use C#.

We do have dependency calls logged in our infrastructure, but we'd like to have custom logging in the code so we can have more control over it.

Thank you!

[dmytrostruk]

@prajwalpyakurelMS Could you please specify which SK language you are using? This will help us to provide related examples. Thanks!

[prajwalpyakurelMS]

Thanks for the example. Can you confirm that we will be using SendAsync only so we only need to override it? Because if you use other methods like GetAsync, PutAsync, etc. we might have to override other methods as well.

[dmytrostruk]

@prajwalpyakurelMS For our connectors, we try to use existing SDKs (e.g. Azure .NET SDK), so this functionality is implemented on their side. But usually overriding SendAsync method should be enough. We use the same approach for unit testing and mocking.

[prajwalpyakurelMS]

Ok thanks a lot! I have a followup:

Can I simply override HttpClientHandler like this in that case? Is there an advantage to doing the way you have described above?

Reason is I think this could apply to other use cases beyond kernel as well.

public class CustomHttpClientHandler : HttpClientHandler
{
   private readonly ITestOutputHelper _output = output; 
    protected override async Task<HttpResponseMessage> SendAsync(HttpRequestMessage request, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
    {
         // add logging

          var responseContent  = await base.SendAsync(request, cancellationToken);
          this._output.WriteLine(responseContent); 
         return responseContent;
    } 
}

Source: https://medium.com/@josemarmolejos/extend-httpclient-calls-and-add-authentication-mocking-and-other-goodies-838de768dbfb

[dmytrostruk]

@prajwalpyakurelMS You can use HttpClientHandler and it should work correctly, but I think for your scenario DelegatingHandler is a recommended way, because you can create a chain of delegating handlers where each handler could be responsible for logging, authentication. retry policies etc, while HttpClientHandler sits at the end of this chain and performs actual HTTP communication. This applies to HTTP communication in ASP.NET Web API, but you can use the same strategy in your app:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/web-api/overview/advanced/http-message-handlers