This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since July 2015.
The debugger statement invokes any available debugging functionality, such as setting a breakpoint. If no debugging functionality is available, this statement has no effect.
debugger;
The following example shows code where a debugger statement has been inserted, to invoke a debugger (if one exists) when the function is called.
function potentiallyBuggyCode() {
debugger;
// do potentially buggy stuff to examine, step through, etc.
}
When the debugger is invoked, execution is paused at the debugger statement. It is like a breakpoint in the script source.

| Desktop | Mobile | Server | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chrome | Edge | Firefox | Opera | Safari | Chrome Android | Firefox for Android | Opera Android | Safari on IOS | Samsung Internet | WebView Android | WebView on iOS | Bun | Deno | Node.js | |
debugger |
5 | 12 | 1 | 10 | 5 | 18 | 4 | 10.1 | 4.2 | 1.0 | 4.4 | 4.2 | 1.0.0 | 1.0 | 0.10.0 |
© 2005–2025 MDN contributors.
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License v2.5 or later.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Statements/debugger