diff --git a/core/base/tools/commander/workspace_template/bin/yamcs-start b/core/base/tools/commander/workspace_template/bin/yamcs-start
index 9bcf18e11..fe0af4fec 100755
--- a/core/base/tools/commander/workspace_template/bin/yamcs-start
+++ b/core/base/tools/commander/workspace_template/bin/yamcs-start
@@ -15,6 +15,8 @@
 PRG="$0"
 YAMCS_HOME="$1"
 WORKSPACE_PATH="$2"
+#The numeric verbosity level, where 0 = OFF, 1 = WARNING, 2 = INFO, 3 = FINE and 4 = ALL. Default: 2
+LOG_LEVEL="${3-2}"
 
 while [ -h "$PRG" ]; do
   ls=`ls -ld "$PRG"`
@@ -60,4 +62,4 @@ if [ "$JMX" = 1 ]; then
   JMX_OPTS="-Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.port=9999 -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.authenticate=false -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.ssl=false"
 fi
 
-exec "$_RUNJAVA" $JAVA_OPTS $JMX_OPTS -Djava.util.logging.manager=org.yamcs.logging.YamcsLogManager -Djava.library.path=$LIBPATH -XX:+HeapDumpOnOutOfMemoryError -XX:HeapDumpPath=/tmp/ org.yamcs.YamcsServer
+exec "$_RUNJAVA" $JAVA_OPTS $JMX_OPTS -Djava.util.logging.manager=org.yamcs.logging.YamcsLogManager -Djava.library.path=$LIBPATH -XX:+HeapDumpOnOutOfMemoryError -XX:HeapDumpPath=/tmp/ org.yamcs.YamcsServer --log $LOG_LEVEL