Show HN: Wirebrowser – A JavaScript debugger with breakpoint-driven heap search

github.com

9 points by fcavallarin 17 hours ago

Hi HN!

I'm building a JavaScript debugger called Wirebrowser. It combines network inspection, request rewriting, heap snapshots, and live object search.

The main experimental feature is BDHS (Breakpoint-Driven Heap Search): it hooks into the JavaScript debugger and automatically captures a heap snapshot at every pause and performs a targeted search for the value or structure of interest. This reveals the moment a value appears in memory and the user-land function responsible for creating it.

Another interesting feature is the Live Object Search: it inspects runtime objects (not just snapshots), supports regex and object similarity, and lets you patch objects directly at runtime.

Whitepaper: https://fcavallarin.github.io/wirebrowser/BDHS-Origin-Trace

Feedback very welcome, especially on whether BDHS would help your debugging workflow.

paulirish 15 minutes ago

Very impressive to see the primitives of CDP be used for such a different DX than what's in existing devtools. Really well done.

klaushougesen1 an hour ago

Great effort!, this stuff is hard to do - so applause for getting something shipped! popped an issue into you issues list.

I sometimes find these tools crash hard when pushed via large memory items, huge blobs of code, long base64 strings etc. Even chrome dev tools crash hard on large WS Messages.

Also perhaps post the video near the top instead of hiding it in the origin paper :), kids like videos these days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA5nHk-6UJc