Terminal Devtools

Terminal based Devtools for Node

Status: Pre-release

Install

$ npm i -g terminal-devtools

Usage

$ devtools [--port <port>] [--host <host>]

By default devtools will connect to the default debugger port (5858)

$ devtools <pid>

When a valid node Process ID is passed, devtools will send a SIGUSR2 signal to the process, putting it into debug mode then connect to port 5858.

Navigating

• ? - help and settings

• c - continue, resume if paused, pause if resumed

• n - step next

• i - step iinto

• o - step out of

• b - set breakpoint (must be in code text panel)

• tab - move forward between panels

• shift+tab - move backward between panels

• ctrl+n - navigator

• ctrl+t - code text

• ctrl+s - callstack

• ctrl+p - breakpoints

• ctrl+o - scope

• ctrl+k - console panel

• 2 - select Console tab

• arrow keys and vi keys (hjkl) control selections in panels

• the mouse can also be used to select tabs, panels and items

Examples

Zero-config

Put a service into debug mode, break on first line

$ node --debug-brk examples/simple

Connect to default debug port

$ devtools

Multi-process

If we need to use more than debug port we can specify

Expose debug port as 5859

$ node --debug-brk=5859 examples/debugger-single-tick

Connect to custom debug port

$ devtools --port 5859

Debug a running process

Start a process as normal, debug mode is completely off

$ node examples/debugger
3879

Process handily outputs PID, pass it to devtools

$ devtools 3879

devtools puts process into debug mode and connects to debugger.

Layouts

There are two supported layouts, Normal and Minimal.

The layout can be changed in Settings (? or click the ⚙ icon).

In minimal layout, hidden panels can be revealed as dialogs using the ctrl based shortcuts (Navigator: ctrl+n, Scope: ctrl+o). To exit a Scope or Navigator dialog press the esc key.

Contributing

More than welcome

See devnotes

Any questions, twitter: @davidmarkclem

License

MIT