I Wanted to Press F5 and Debug JavaScript — So I Built My Own VS Code Debugger

Sometimes software development reaches a point where the tools designed to make your job easier start becoming part of the job. I ran into that with browser debugging. I wanted something that should have been simple: Set a breakpoint. Press F5. Debug my JavaScript. Instead, I found myself spending too much time thinking about development servers, browser launch configuration, debugger connections, ports, profiles, and the debugging environment itself. That led to a simple question: What if browser debugging could go back to convention over configuration? So I built CloudIDEaaS JavaScript Debugger . ⚡ The Goal: Press F5 and Debug The philosophy behind CloudIDEaaS is straightforward: Spend your time debugging your application instead of debugging your debugging environment. For a straightforward JavaScript or HTML project, I wanted the workflow to look like this: Set a breakpoint. Press F5 . Start debugging. Behind those three steps, CloudIDEaaS can start the local web server, launch Chrome, establish the debugging connection, configure your breakpoints, and then load the application. The important part is that you don't have to think about most of that. 🔴 Real Debugging Inside VS Code This isn't intended to replace Chrome DevTools or compete feature-for-feature with every large JavaScript debugging platform. It's focused on providing the debugging features I use most often directly inside Visual Studio Code: 🔴 Source and conditional breakpoints 👣 Step over, step into, and step out ▶️ Continue and pause 🔍 Local variables and object inspection 📚 Scopes and call stacks 🧮 Expression evaluation ⚠️ Exception breakpoint configuration 🌐 A built-in local web server One feature that was particularly important to me was startup breakpoints . The debugger establishes the connection and configures your breakpoints before loading the application, making it possible to catch JavaScript that executes during startup. 🧠 What's Actually Happening Under the Hood? Building the debugger a