---
title: APM NLog layout
description: Allows you to add the following place holders in your NLog templates: ElasticApmTraceId, ElasticApmTransactionId, ElasticApmSpanId, ElasticApmServiceName,...
url: https://www.elastic.co/docs/reference/ecs/logging/dotnet/apm-nlog-enricher
products:
  - ECS Logging
  - ECS Logging .NET
applies_to:
  - Elastic Cloud Serverless: Generally available
  - Elastic Stack: Generally available
---

# APM NLog layout
Allows you to add the following place holders in your NLog templates:
- `ElasticApmTraceId`
- `ElasticApmTransactionId`
- `ElasticApmSpanId`
- `ElasticApmServiceName`
- `ElasticApmServiceNodeName`
- `ElasticApmServiceVersion`

Which will be replaced with the appropriate Elastic APM variables if available

## Installation

Add a reference to the [Elastic.Apm.NLog](http://nuget.org/packages/Elastic.Apm.NLog) package:
```xml
<PackageReference Include="Elastic.Apm.NLog" Version="8.6.0" />
```


## Usage


### How to use from API

```csharp
// Logged message will be in format of `trace-id|transation-id|span-id|InTransaction`
// or `|||InTransaction` if the place holders are not available
var consoleTarget = new ConsoleTarget("console");
consoleTarget.Layout =
    "${ElasticApmServiceName}|${ElasticApmTraceId}|${ElasticApmTransactionId}|${ElasticApmSpanId}|${message}";
config.AddRule(LogLevel.Debug, LogLevel.Fatal, consoleTarget);
LogManager.Configuration = config;
var logger = LogManager.GetCurrentClassLogger();
```


### How to use from NLog.config

```xml
<nlog>
  <extensions>
    <add assembly="Elastic.Apm.NLog"/>
  </extensions>
  <targets>
    <target name="console"
        type="console"
        layout="${ElasticApmTraceId}|${ElasticApmTransactionId}|${ElasticApmSpanId}|${message}" />
  </targets>
  <rules>
    <logger name="*" minLevel="Debug" writeTo="Console" />
  </rules>
</nlog>
```


## Prerequisite

The prerequisite for this to work is a configured [Elastic APM Agent](https://github.com/elastic/apm-agent-dotnet). If the agent is not configured the APM place holders will be empty.