Debug is a tiny JavaScript debugging utility inspired by Node.js core’s debugging technique. It exposes a `debug(namespace)` function that returns a decorated `console.error`, letting developers toggle debug output by namespace via the `DEBUG` environment variable, and it works in both Node.js and web browsers.
Project status
- The source (debug-js/debug) appears maintained, with an upstream push on 2026-04-01 and no indication it has been abandoned or stopped. The most recently described published update in the provided history is 4.4.3 on 2025-09-13.
- Update cadence looks moderate rather than frequent: 4.4.0 on 2024-12-06, 4.4.1 on 2025-05-13, 4.4.3 on 2025-09-13, with no additional version updates shown after that (despite the 2026-04 upstream push).
AI summary generated
Recent updates
4.4.3
Release 4.4.3 is described as functionally identical to 4.4.1, with the main motivation being that version 4.4.2 is compromised. The release notes do not list any code changes beyond that statement.
Security4.4.1
Release 4.4.1 ships small behavioral fixes related to how debug namespaces are parsed and how the debug value is loaded in browsers. The code changes match the two release note items, but there is also an undocumented change affecting the node test/coverage setup.
4.4.0
Version 4.4.0 focuses on fixing inefficient regex warnings related to the `.enable()` API. The implementation changes the namespace matching logic to avoid building and testing regular expressions for enable patterns.
Breaking4.3.7
Release 4.3.7 primarily upgrades the `ms` dependency. The release notes only mention updating `ms` to 2.1.3, but the actual diff also changes how `ms` is specified (pinned vs range) and removes several README badges.
4.3.6
Release 4.3.6 updates the debug package version and adjusts browser environment detection logic. The documented change replaces usage of the deprecated RegExp.$1 pattern with a safer match-capture variable.
4.3.5
Release 4.3.5 is a small patch release focused on a fix related to debug output depth. The release notes mention a single change, 'Fix/debug depth'.
4.3.4
Release 4.3.4 updates the README with guidance for enabling debug output in Chromium-based browsers. It also replaces a deprecated String.prototype.substr usage in the debug namespace matching logic.
Features4.3.3
Release 4.3.3 is described as documentation-only and primarily relates to migrating the repository from the old GitHub org (visionmedia/debug) to debug-js/debug. The code diff confirms changes are limited to project metadata, README content, LICENSE/copyright attribution, and a minor JSDoc wording fix, with no substantive runtime logic changes.
4.3.2
Release 4.3.2 is a patch release that improves performance of `.enabled` checks by caching enabled status per logger. The notes only mention the caching behavior at a high level.
4.3.1
Release 4.3.1 is a small patch release that claims to fix a ReDOS regression. The code change replaces a newline-whitespace collapsing RegExp in the object formatter with a split, trim, and join approach.