| FMRS | 62 / 100 · C | 79 / 100 · B |
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| Reliability | 9 / 20 | 12 / 20 |
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| Security and permissions | 13 / 20 | 16 / 20 |
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| Maintenance | 12 / 20 | 18 / 20 |
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| Documentation | 15 / 20 | 18 / 20 |
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| Setup experience | 13 / 20 | 15 / 20 |
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| Best for | - Developers using AI coding agents in VS Code who want real debugging capability
- Scenarios needing automated root-cause analysis instead of reading logs
- Users working in VS Code Remote SSH, Codespaces, or WSL remote environments
- Teams wanting one unified debugging tool across many programming languages
| - Developers auditing NPM dependencies within AI workflows
- Teams performing supply chain security assessments
- Users of Claude Desktop, Cursor, or VS Code
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| Not for | - Users who do not use VS Code or any MCP-compatible AI assistant
- Scenarios that need to expose the debugging service to other machines on a network (loopback-only by default; rebinding carries unauthenticated risk)
- Users who will not install the corresponding VS Code debugger extension for their language
- Users expecting an externally hosted or cloud-based debugging service (the extension runs locally only)
| - Projects outside the NPM ecosystem (e.g., pure Python/Go)
- Environments without network access to deps.dev, OSV.dev, and the npm registry
- Scenarios requiring maintenance by an official upstream vendor
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| Required permissions | - Listen on an HTTP port on loopback addresses (127.0.0.1 and ::1), default 3001, configurable via debugmcp.serverPort
- Read the source files being debugged and any .vscode/launch.json configuration in the project
- Call the VS Code Debug API to start/stop debug sessions, set breakpoints, and step through code
- Read variable values in debug context and evaluate expressions (with secret redaction applied)
- Install the debug-live skill file into standard skills directories (~/.agents/skills/, plus ~/.copilot/skills/ when present)
| - Network access to the NPM registry and external services (deps.dev, OSV.dev, OpenSSF, npms.io, GitHub)
- Read access to workspace lockfiles (pnpm-lock.yaml, package-lock., yarn.lock) for cache invalidation
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| Risks and side effects | - The MCP endpoint is unauthenticated by default, so any local process that can reach the loopback port can call powerful debugger primitives such as evaluate_expression
- Changing debugmcp.bindHost to 0.0.0.0 or a LAN address exposes the unauthenticated debugger to anything that can route to that address
- Evaluating expressions through the debugger can have side effects depending on the debugged program, and agent auto-approval reduces human confirmation
- Variable redaction relies on names and credential shapes, so it can miss secrets; null-ish values are deliberately not redacted, which may leak sensitive data in edge cases
- The extension modifies AI assistant MCP registration configuration (with a prompt)
| - Third-party READMEs and changelogs are untrusted external content; they are wrapped in tags with _meta flags but should still be handled cautiously
- Depends on availability and accuracy of external services
- Batch requests are capped at 25 packages to prevent registry enumeration; larger sets require batching
- Third-party open source project, not officially maintained by NPM or Anthropic
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| Supported clients | GitHub Copilot, GitHub Copilot CLI, Cline, Cursor, Codex, Windsurf, Roo Code, Antigravity | Claude Desktop, VS Code, Cursor |
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| Tools | 16 | 19 |
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