obug

A lightweight JavaScript debugging utility, forked from debug, featuring TypeScript and ESM support.

[!NOTE] obug v1 retains most of the compatibility with debug, but drops support for older browsers and Node.js, making it a drop-in replacement.

obug v2 refactors some API imports and usage for better support of ESM and TypeScript, easier customization, and an even smaller package size.

Key Differences from debug

• ✨ Minimal footprint
  • 7.7 kB package size
  • 1.4 KB minified + gzipped for browsers
• 📦 Zero dependencies
• 📝 Full TypeScript support
• 🚀 Native ESM compatibility
• 🌐 Optimized for modern runtimes
  • ES2015+ browsers
  • Modern Node.js versions
• 🎨 Customizable formatting

Installation

npm install obug

Usage

import { createDebug, disable, enable, enabled, namespaces } from 'obug'

// Get the currently enabled namespaces
console.log(namespaces())

const debug = createDebug('my-namespace', {
  // All options are optional

  useColors: true, // false, true, undefined for auto-detect
  color: 2, // custom color
  // custom formatArgs
  formatArgs(args) {},
  formatters: {},
  // Node.js only
  inspectOpts: {},

  // custom log
  log: console.log,
})

debug('This is a debug message')
console.log(
  debug.namespace, // 'my-namespace'
  debug.enabled, // Check if enabled
  debug.useColors, // true
  debug.color, // 2
  debug.formatArgs, // custom formatArgs
  debug.formatters, // {}
  debug.inspectOpts, // {}
  debug.log, // implemented log function
)

// Create a sub-namespace, and it will inherit options from the parent debugger
const sub = debug.extend('sub-namespace')
sub('This is a sub-namespace debug message')
console.log(sub.namespace) // 'my-namespace:sub-namespace'

Original Authors

As obug is a fork of debug with significant modifications, we would like to acknowledge the original authors:

• TJ Holowaychuk
• Nathan Rajlich
• Andrew Rhyne
• Josh Junon

Sponsors

License

MIT License © 2025-PRESENT Kevin Deng

The MIT License Copyright (c) 2014-2017 TJ Holowaychuk <tj@vision-media.ca>

The MIT License Copyright (c) 2018-2021 Josh Junon