# Is output order guaranteed?
**URL:** https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-output-order-guaranteed/175639
**Category:** Logstash
**Created:** [April 5, 2019, 5:55pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-output-order-guaranteed/175639 "2019-04-05T17:55:25Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@smbullet](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/smbullet)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2019, 5:55pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-output-order-guaranteed/175639/1 "2019-04-05T17:55:25Z")
If I have several outputs defined, are my events guaranteed to hit each output in the order they are defined?
I want to have an output plugin add a tag if it fails and have a conditional that will send my event to a file if that tag exists. It would look like this:
```
output {
my_custom_output_plugin {}
if "failed_custom_output" in [tags] {
file {
path => "/var/log/failed_to_send.log"
}
}
}
```
The logic to add the tag would exist in the custom output plugin. Would something like this work?
---
### Author:  [@Badger](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Badger)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2019, 6:15pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-output-order-guaranteed/175639/2 "2019-04-05T18:15:18Z")
> [@smbullet](#):
>
> If I have several outputs defined, are my events guaranteed to hit each output in the order they are defined?
I am not certain, but I believe ordering is effectively random. The outputs run independently.
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### Author:  [@smbullet](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/smbullet)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2019, 6:22pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-output-order-guaranteed/175639/3 "2019-04-05T18:22:32Z")
It's my understanding that the outputs are shared resources that the pipeline workers need to grab a lock for. It would make sense that instead of blocking on one output it would work on others first but I can't find anything that documents this behavior.
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### Author:  [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2019, 6:22pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/is-output-order-guaranteed/175639/4 "2019-05-03T18:22:40Z")
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