diff --git a/docs/development/self-hosting.md b/docs/development/self-hosting.md
index 460ed10ccb5d16c7c5ccf396b03e284a492b765c..bfbc9febea1e227a07f1d416222ebbae7ffeb77f 100644
--- a/docs/development/self-hosting.md
+++ b/docs/development/self-hosting.md
@@ -348,3 +348,7 @@ spec:
                       name: renovate-env
           restartPolicy: Never
 ```
+
+## Logging
+
+It's recommended to configure `LOG_LEVEL=debug` and `LOG_FORMAT=json` in environment if you are ingesting/parsing logs into another system. Debug logging is usually necessary for any debugging, while JSON format will mean that the output is parseable.
diff --git a/docs/usage/self-hosted-configuration.md b/docs/usage/self-hosted-configuration.md
index 2faa4576cd692530e1bc71b7b3fbbf020dfd4fa3..3a1f3ba379735ca5ae668d0d83576deb07470231 100644
--- a/docs/usage/self-hosted-configuration.md
+++ b/docs/usage/self-hosted-configuration.md
@@ -98,6 +98,10 @@ The `git` commands are run locally in the cloned repo instead of globally to red
 
 ## logLevel
 
+It's recommended to run at debug level if you can, and configure it using the environment variable `LOG_LEVEL=debug`. By configuring using the environment it means that debug logging starts from the beginning of the app, while if you configure it using file config then the debug logging can only start after the file config is parsed.
+
+Additionally, if you configure `LOG_FORMAT=json` in env then logging will be done in JSON format instead of "pretty" format, which is usually better if you're doing any ingestion or parsing of the logs.
+
 ## onboarding
 
 Set this to `false` if (a) you configure Renovate entirely on the bot side (i.e. empty `renovate.json` in repositories) and (b) you wish to run Renovate on every repository the bot has access to, and (c) you wish to skip the onboarding PRs.