Maintainer of this skill?
by microsoft
Gift your VS Code agent a real debugger: breakpoints, stepping, inspection.
# Add to your Claude Code skills
git clone https://github.com/microsoft/DebugMCPLast scanned: 5/27/2026
{
"issues": [
{
"type": "npm-audit",
"message": "@vscode/test-cli: Vulnerability found",
"severity": "medium"
},
{
"type": "npm-audit",
"message": "brace-expansion: brace-expansion: Zero-step sequence causes process hang and memory exhaustion",
"severity": "medium"
},
{
"type": "npm-audit",
"message": "express-rate-limit: Vulnerability found",
"severity": "medium"
},
{
"type": "npm-audit",
"message": "ip-address: ip-address has XSS in Address6 HTML-emitting methods",
"severity": "medium"
},
{
"type": "npm-audit",
"message": "mocha: Vulnerability found",
"severity": "medium"
},
{
"type": "npm-audit",
"message": "serialize-javascript: Serialize JavaScript is Vulnerable to RCE via RegExp.flags and Date.prototype.toISOString()",
"severity": "high"
}
],
"status": "WARNING",
"scannedAt": "2026-05-27T08:04:41.992Z",
"semgrepRan": false,
"npmAuditRan": true,
"pipAuditRan": true
}See how DebugMCP compares with popular alternatives.
DebugMCP is an open-source ai agents skill for AI coding assistants such as Claude Code, Codex CLI, and ChatGPT, built by microsoft. Gift your VS Code agent a real debugger: breakpoints, stepping, inspection. It has 574 GitHub stars.
DebugMCP returned warnings in SkillsLLM's automated security scan. It has no critical vulnerabilities, but review the flagged issues in the Security Report section before adding it to your workflow.
Clone the repository with "git clone https://github.com/microsoft/DebugMCP" and add it to your Claude Code skills directory (see the Installation section above).
DebugMCP is primarily written in TypeScript. It is open-source under microsoft on GitHub, so you can review or fork the full source.
Yes. SkillsLLM lists many other AI Agents skills you can browse and compare side by side. Open the AI Agents category from the badge at the top of this page, or use the Related Skills and comparison links further down to weigh DebugMCP against similar tools.
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Requires a passing catalog security scan.
⚠️ Third-Party Software Notice
This skill is third-party open-source software developed and hosted independently on GitHub. SkillsLLM is an informational directory and does not control or maintain the underlying repository.
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Review the source code, permissions, dependencies, and configuration before installing or running any third-party skill. Use is at your own risk. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, SkillsLLM is not liable for losses arising from third-party software.
Let AI agents debug your code inside VS Code - set breakpoints, step through execution, inspect variables, and evaluate expressions. Works with Codex, GitHub Copilot, GitHub Copilot CLI, Claude Code, Cline, Cursor, Windsurf, Roo Code, and any MCP-compatible assistant. Compatible with any VS Code supported coding language.
🚀 DebugMCP CLI is now available on npm! Debug directly from the terminal without requiring VS Code or any IDE at all by connecting AI coding agents to explicitly configured Debug Adapter Protocol (DAP) adapters. The debug adapter and target process run in the background. Install it with
npm install --global debugmcp, then rundebugmcp configure --agent copilot-cli. The CLI also installs thedebug-liveskill automatically. View the package on npm
⭐ If you find DebugMCP useful, please star the repo on GitHub! It helps others discover the project and motivates continued development.
📢 Developers Notice: This extension is maintained by ozzafar@microsoft.com and orbarila@microsoft.com. We welcome feedback and contributions to help improve this extension.
🎬 Watch DebugMCP in action — your AI assistant autonomously sets breakpoints, steps through code, and inspects variables directly in VS Code.
debugmcp from npm and give MCP-compatible agents direct access to explicitly configured DAP adapters without running VS Code. The CLI supports any language with a DAP adapter that communicates over stdio, configures supported agents, and installs the debug-live skill automatically.debug-live skill install — the systematic debugging workflow ships as an Agent Skill and is now installed into the standard skills directories — ~/.agents/skills/ (the cross-agent location honored by skills-compatible harnesses, including VS Code agent mode) and ~/.copilot/skills/ when present — so it's discoverable everywhere instead of being copied next to each agent's config where nothing scans it (fixes #105, where VS Code never loaded the skill). The server also advertises MCP instructions and the start_debugging tool points at the skill for the full workflow.pause_execution tool interrupts a freely-running program and stops at its current location, even with no breakpoint set (great for busy loops and embedded/bare-metal targets), so you can then inspect state or step from there.start_debugging with a testName uses the VS Code Testing API to discover and launch the test, producing consistent breakpoint hits inside individual test cases across language test runners (pytest, Jest/Vitest, Java, .NET, Go, etc.).Install DebugMCP from VS Code Marketplace or use the direct link: vscode:extension/ozzafar.debugmcpextension
Install DebugMCP from Open VSX Registry
DebugMCP is an MCP server that gives AI coding agents full control over the VS Code debugger. Instead of reading logs or guessing, your AI assistant can autonomously set breakpoints, launch debug sessions, step through code line by line, inspect variable values, and evaluate expressions — just like a human developer would. It runs 100% locally, requires zero configuration, and works out of the box with any MCP-compatible AI assistant.
| Tool | Description | Parameters |
|---|---|---|
| start_debugging | Start a debug session for a source code file | fileFullPath (required)workingDirectory (required)testName (optional)configurationName (optional) |
| stop_debugging | Stop the current debug session | None |
| step_over | Execute the next line (step over function calls) | None |
| step_into | Step into function calls | None |
| step_out | Step out of the current function | None |
| continue_execution | Continue until next breakpoint | None |
| pause_execution | Interrupt a freely-running program and stop at its current location (no breakpoint needed) | None |
| restart_debugging | Restart the current debug session; a fresh stop without acknowledgement returns an explicit completion-unconfirmed result, not confirmed success | None |
| get_debug_status | Read paused/running/no-session status, the active session ID, and selected-frame details when paused; optionally wait for a pause | waitForPauseSeconds (optional, 0-600; bounded by the operation timeout) |
| get_debug_output | Read captured output for one session; requires user-enabled capture and at least one filter | sessionId (required)prefix and/or category (required filter; both are ANDed)cursor (optional)limit (optional, 1-100) |
| add_breakpoint | Add a breakpoint at a specific line (optionally conditional) | fileFullPath (required)line (required, 1-based)condition (optional) |
| add_logpoint | Add a logpoint that logs a message (instead of pausing) when a line is reached | fileFullPath (required)line (required, 1-based)logMessage (required, {expr} interpolated)condition (optional) |
| remove_breakpoint | Remove a breakpoint from a specific line | fileFullPath (required)line (required) |
| clear_all_breakpoints | Remove all breakpoints at once | None |
| list_breakpoints | List all active breakpoints | None |
| list_variable_names | List names and types of variables in scope, without reading any values | scope (optional: 'local', 'global', 'all') |
| get_variables_values | Get the values of specifically named variables at the current execution point | variableNames (required, e.g. ["user","response"])scope (optional: 'local', 'global', 'all') |
| evaluate_expression | Evaluate an expression in debug context; expandable children are listed by name and type without their values | expression (required) |
Note: The MCP server exposes tools for debugger actions, while the procedural workflow guidance (when to debug, how to structure a root-cause investigation, language-specific quirks) lives in the companion Agent Skill. Tool descriptions stay terse and behavioral; the extension installs the
debug-liveskill into the standard skills directories (~/.agents/skills/, plus~/.copilot/skills/when present) so skills-compatible harnesses load the full workflow on demand. The server also advertises MCPinstructionspointing agents at it before debugging.
To read logpoint messages without pausing the program, enable
debugmcp.captureDebugOutput in VS Code user settings before output is emitted.
For the standalone CLI host, start it with debugmcp serve --capture-output.
Capture is off by default, and MCP tools cannot enable it.
Obtain sessionId from get_debug_status while the session is active, then call
get_debug_output, for example:
{
"sessionId": "<session-id-from-get_debug_status>",
"prefix": "[orders]",
"limit": 20
}
Provide a nonempty prefix (up to 256 characters), a category (console,
stdout, stderr, or important), or both. Reuse the returned nextCursor as
cursor with the same filters to read new entries; hasMore indicates additional
entries to scan, and truncated reports evicted history. Only DAP output events
are captured, not existing Debug Console contents.
Output stays in memory, bounded to 8 sessions and 1,000 events/256 KiB per session. Events over 8 KiB are replaced by an omission marker. History can remain after termination until eviction, but changing the capture setting or disposing the host clears it; output is not persisted or logged by the capture feature. Credential-pattern redaction happens before retention, but is heuristic and event-local, not a guarantee that every secret is removed. Enable capture only for output you intend to make available to the agent.
DebugMCP follows systematic debugging practices for effective issue resolution: