Raising GLOBAL_LOG_LEVEL to WARNING buys quieter output but not less work: 241 INFO call sites interpolate their payload into an f-string before the logging call gets to drop it. The heaviest is get_doc, which logs every chunk id and metadata dict in a collection, so on the full-context retrieval path that is the entire knowledge base, once per chat request.
That one line at WARNING, CPython 3.12:
| knowledge base | payload | before | after |
| -------------- | ------- | -------- | ------- |
| top-k of 3 | 1.2 kB | 3.8 us | 0.07 us |
| 500 chunks | 201 kB | 583.6 us | 0.08 us |
| 5000 chunks | 2.0 MB | 5.8 ms | 0.15 us |
The lazy form log.info('query_doc:result %s %s', result.ids, result.metadatas) hands the payload to record.getMessage(), which the InterceptHandler only reaches once a record has passed the level check. Output at INFO is byte-identical. Two sites that already built their message eagerly, one str concat and one % operator, move to the same lazy form.
GLOBAL_LOG_LEVEL defaults to INFO, so every log.debug(...) in the backend is discarded, but the message is built first: 187 call sites interpolate their payload into an f-string before the logging call runs, so the work happens on every request and the result is thrown away. The worst one sits in process_chat_payload and stringifies the whole request body, full conversation history included, once per chat completion.
That one line with DEBUG disabled, CPython 3.12:
| conversation | payload | before | after |
| ------------ | ------- | -------- | ------- |
| 4 messages | 1.2 kB | 3.4 us | 0.07 us |
| 20 messages | 17 kB | 24.8 us | 0.07 us |
| 60 messages | 123 kB | 216.6 us | 0.07 us |
The lazy form log.debug('form_data: %s', form_data) hands the payload to record.getMessage(), which the InterceptHandler only reaches once a record has passed the level check. With DEBUG enabled the emitted lines are byte-identical, f'{x=}' sites included: those map to %r. MistralLoader._debug_log callers get the same treatment, since that wrapper already forwards *args.
Classic298