Chrome devtool extension for nodejs debugging

[Alexandre Morgaut]

Hi,

I wondered if there anything specific to know if we want to write a devtool extension that add a panel in Node.js debugging mode

I saw that the ReactJS devtool panel is shown only in frontend mode bu not when opening the nodejs debugging window.

Is it even possible to extend this remote debugger without proposing a whole custom nodejs debugger like NiM ?

Thank you

Alexandre

[Alexandre Morgaut]

Hi again,

I didn't got any answer so trying again

I've been looking for

• https://developer.chrome.com/devtools/docs/integrating
• & https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/devtools
  

This explains we can write devtool extensions adding for example custom panels

An additional page (https://developer.chrome.com/devtools/docs/sample-extensions) gives few examples

But this one gives more of them: https://developer.chrome.com/devtools/docs/extensions-gallery

ex:

• AngularJS Batarang https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/angularjs-batarang/ighdmehidhipcmcojjgiloacoafjmpfk

• React Developer Tools https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/react-developer-tools/fmkadmapgofadopljbjfkapdkoienihi
  

This is all good 

Now the context I'm interested in is the "dedicated DevTools for Node" that can be open from "chrome://inspect#devices" (also used for https://developers.google.com/web/tools/chrome-devtools/remote-debugging/webviews)

React / Angular devtool extension panels are not exposed in this opened nodejs devtool window

It could be an expected behavior for frontend framework extensions but I didn't found any examples of developer tool extension applied to this context

Am I the only one interested in making the Chrome Node.js devtool instance able to have extensions too ?

There in many extensions that could be interesting in this context, like:

• express
• mocha (debuging tests & putting breakpoint in the right place can be complicated)
  
• mqtt
• meteor
• ...

In my situation I use nodejs with a native rendering engine so, providing:

• an "Elements" like panel representing the rendering, like you can do with react-native (https://facebook.github.io/react-native/docs/debugging.html) but directly in the node devtool would be awesome
  
• the "Toggle Screencast" feature as the one proposed for Android screens (https://developers.google.com/web/tools/chrome-devtools/remote-debugging/#screencast)

Regards,

Alexandre

[Kayce Basques]

Hey Alexandre, I asked the engineers about this a while back. If I recall correctly, I believe they said that custom panels is not possible for Node debugging at the moment.