Find the Newest Build Logs First

A CI job produced several logs and reports, and you need to quickly locate the most recent build output before reading everything.

Command

find artifacts logs -type f \( -name '*.log' -o -name '*.txt' \) -printf '%TY-%Tm-%Td %TH:%TM %p\n' | sort -r | head

Before you run this

System impact: Read-only. Can create load on large logs, directories, filesystems, or process tables.

When not to use it: Do not use it as proof of failure cause; open the relevant log after locating it.

Expected output

A date-sorted list of recent .log and .txt files.

System impact

Read-only, can be slow. Nothing changes. The shell prints the newest matching log files first.

Scope this to the smallest useful path or service on busy systems.

Recovery / rollback: no state is changed.

When to use it

Use when a build leaves many logs and you need the most likely failure source.

When not to use it

Do not use it as proof of failure cause; open the relevant log after locating it.

Explanation-only example

Illustrated output, not a live lab run

This example is intentionally illustrative. It shows the command shape without killing real processes or changing your machine.

demo@lab:~$

$ cd /work/ci-artifacts && find artifacts logs -type f | sort

artifacts/build/app-build.log
artifacts/build/webpack.log
artifacts/coverage/coverage-summary.json
artifacts/coverage/coverage-summary.txt
artifacts/dist/assets/main.js
artifacts/dist/assets/vendor.js
artifacts/dist/index.html
artifacts/test/junit.xml
artifacts/test/pytest.log
logs/cache.log
logs/deploy.log

$ cd /work/ci-artifacts && find artifacts logs -type f $ -name '*.log' -o -name '*.txt' $ -printf '%TY-%Tm-%Td %TH:%TM %p\n' | sort -r | head

2026-06-25 10:07 logs/cache.log
2026-06-25 10:06 logs/deploy.log
2026-06-25 10:05 artifacts/coverage/coverage-summary.txt
2026-06-25 10:04 artifacts/build/app-build.log
2026-06-25 10:03 artifacts/build/webpack.log
2026-06-25 10:01 artifacts/test/pytest.log

$ cd /work/ci-artifacts && sed -n '1,80p' artifacts/build/app-build.log

Starting build
Resolving dependencies
Compiling app
ERROR in src/server.ts:42: missing export createServer
Build failed with exit code 1

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