A draft for making a decision on managing logging configurations

docs/decisions/0011-managing-logging-configuration.rst

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+Status
+======
+
+Draft
+
+
+Context
+=======
+
+Logging configuration needs more options to be useful for devops/SRE work.
+
+Decision
+========
+
+Let us add an optional override dictionary to `get_logging_config`. This would
+allow us to change filters, log options, and add custom log handlers, with
+varying utility for differing edx platform installations.
+
+Specification of the override dictionary can be done within the YAML configs,
+to keep things consistant with how the rest of managing Django settings.
+
+Explanation and examples for adding logging customization to Django settings
+should be included in any relevent documentation.
+
+
+Consequences
+============
+
+Having the override logging settings defined in yaml override files keeps
+changes to log configuration easier to view and manage, as they will be
+consistent with the rest of Django setting management.
+
+Having the actual override occur as part of `get_logging_config` means one does
+not need to worry about resetting the logging state, if called multiple times
+during setting extensions.
+
+The limitation demarkation of log configuration then lies in what the logging
+module actually offers.
+
+
+Alternatives Considered
+=======================
+
+Individual kwargs for specific overrides
+----------------------------------------
+
+The argument here is to create limitiation by attempting to guess what specific
+logging customization might be required for future log formating. This would
+clutter the interface if more options are later discovered to be necessary.
+
+Moving the log configuration into the settings module
+-----------------------------------------------------
+
+The argument here is to make logging management the same as other configuration
+values, for ergonomics. There are advantages to this; the implementation does
+not need to handle dictionary merges, and the possibility of divergent logging
+implementations is less. But the initial comment to the implementation is worth
+reproducing in full here:
+
+    Return the appropriate logging config dictionary. You should assign the
+    result of this to the LOGGING var in your settings. The reason it's done
+    this way instead of registering directly is because I didn't want to worry
+    about resetting the logging state if this is called multiple times when
+    settings are extended.
+
+This seems like a good enough reason to continue to use `get_logging_config`.
+