How Do You Get Nginx Logs to be in JSON format?

Problem scenario
The book Expert Python Programming (page 278) says 12 Factor app recommends that the application should not be aware of the format of the logs. JSON format for logs can be beneficial for various purposes. You want Nginx's access logs -- but not error logs -- to be in JSON format. What do you do?

Solution
Use a file like this for your nginx.conf. The only lines that are relevant are those from log_format json_combined escape=json to access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log json_combined; This sequence of lines, inclusive, makes the logging happen in a JSON format. The changes to this file do not take effect until you restart nginx, e.g., with this command sudo systemctl restart nginx.

# For more information on configuration, see:
#   * Official English Documentation: http://nginx.org/en/docs/
#   * Official Russian Documentation: http://nginx.org/ru/docs/

user nginx;
worker_processes auto;
error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log debug;
pid /run/nginx.pid;

# Load dynamic modules. See /usr/share/doc/nginx/README.dynamic.
include /usr/share/nginx/modules/*.conf;

events {
    worker_connections 1024;
}

http {
    log_format  json_combined escape=json
                      '"time_local":"$time_local", '
                      '"remote_addr":"$remote_addr", '
                      '"remote_user":"$remote_user", '
                      '"request":"$request", '
                      '"status": "$status", '
                      '"body_bytes_sent":"$body_bytes_sent", '
                      '"request_time":"$request_time", '
                      '"http_referrer":"$http_referer", '
                      '"http_user_agent":"$http_user_agent", ';

    access_log  /var/log/nginx/access.log json_combined;

    sendfile            on;
    tcp_nopush          on;
    tcp_nodelay         on;
    keepalive_timeout   65;
    types_hash_max_size 2048;

    include             /etc/nginx/mime.types;
    default_type        application/octet-stream;

    # Load modular configuration files from the /etc/nginx/conf.d directory.
    # See http://nginx.org/en/docs/ngx_core_module.html#include
    # for more information.
    include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;

    server {
        listen       80 default_server;
        listen       [::]:80 default_server;
        server_name  _;
        root         /usr/share/nginx/html;

        # Load configuration files for the default server block.
        include /etc/nginx/default.d/*.conf;

        location / {
        }

        error_page 404 /404.html;
            location = /40x.html {
        }

        error_page 500 502 503 504 /50x.html;
            location = /50x.html {
        }
    }

# Settings for a TLS enabled server.
#
#    server {
#        listen       443 ssl http2 default_server;
#        listen       [::]:443 ssl http2 default_server;
#        server_name  _;
#        root         /usr/share/nginx/html;
#
#        ssl_certificate "/etc/pki/nginx/server.crt";
#        ssl_certificate_key "/etc/pki/nginx/private/server.key";
#        ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:1m;
#        ssl_session_timeout  10m;
#        ssl_ciphers PROFILE=SYSTEM;
#        ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
#
#        # Load configuration files for the default server block.
#        include /etc/nginx/default.d/*.conf;
#
#        location / {
#        }
#
#        error_page 404 /404.html;
#            location = /40x.html {
#        }
#
#        error_page 500 502 503 504 /50x.html;
#            location = /50x.html {
#        }
#    }

}