Usage

Manual Setup

For full control over which plugins are loaded:

local FeatherDebugger = require "feather"
local FeatherPluginManager = require "feather.plugin_manager"
local ScreenshotPlugin = require "feather.plugins.screenshots"

local debugger = FeatherDebugger({
  debug = Config.__IS_DEBUG,
  wrapPrint = true,
  defaultObservers = true,
  autoRegisterErrorHandler = true,
  plugins = {
    FeatherPluginManager.createPlugin(ScreenshotPlugin, "screenshots", {
      screenshotDirectory = "screenshots",
      fps = 30,
      gifDuration = 5,
    }),
  },
})

function love.update(dt)
  debugger:update(dt)
end

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Observers

Watch variable values in real-time from the Observability tab:

debugger:observe("player", player)
debugger:observe("camera", camera)

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Logging

Feather automatically wraps print() when wrapPrint = true. You can also log manually:

debugger:print("Something happened")

debugger:log({
  type = "awesome_log_type",
  str  = "Something happened",
})

Trace

debugger:trace("Something happened")

Error logging

debugger:error("Something went wrong")

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Console / REPL

The Console is an opt-in plugin for evaluating Lua code directly inside the running game. It is not included by default.

require("feather.auto").setup({
  include = { "console" },
  pluginOptions = { console = { evalEnabled = true } },
})

Once enabled, open the Console tab in the desktop app and type any Lua expression. Return values are shown inline; print() output is captured automatically.

return player.health          -- inspect a value
player.speed = 500            -- tweak live
return love.graphics.getStats()

→ Full Console documentation

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Step Debugger

The step debugger pauses game execution at any line and lets you inspect local variables, closure values, and the call stack from the Debugger tab.

require("feather.auto").setup({ debugger = true })

Click any line number in the source view to add a breakpoint. While paused, use Continue, Step Over, Step Into, and Step Out to navigate execution.

→ Full Debugger documentation

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Assets

The Assets tab tracks textures, fonts, and audio sources loaded at runtime. It can preview file-backed images directly from the desktop filesystem, and falls back to game-rendered PNG previews for procedural textures and fonts.

Use Select Folder in the Assets tab to set the session's Game Root when the desktop needs a local copy of the game project.

→ Full Assets documentation

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Time Travel

Time Travel records per-frame observer snapshots into a ring buffer and lets you scrub backwards through history to find exactly when a value changed.

require("feather.auto").setup({ include = { "time-travel" } })

Open the Time Travel tab, click Start Recording, reproduce the bug, then click Stop & Load to fetch and scrub through the captured frames.

→ Full Time Travel documentation