AWS Network Debugger

The AWS Network Debugger is a Chrome DevTools extension designed for developers who build and debug applications running on AWS infrastructure.

What it does:

When you visit a web application that runs on AWS (for example behind API Gateway, Lambda, or other AWS services), this extension sits inside Chrome DevTools as a new tab called AWS X-Ray. While you browse your application, it silently monitors every network request and automatically captures any response that contains the AWS Traces header.

When you click on a captured request, it immediately calls the AWS X-Ray API using your saved credentials and fetches the full distributed trace. It then displays a visual tree of every AWS service that request passed through, showing you the timing, duration, errors, throttles, and metadata for each segment. If your request hit a Lambda function, you can also click a Logs button directly on that segment to fetch and view the CloudWatch logs for that exact Lambda invocation without ever leaving the browser.

Why users should install it:

First, it eliminates context switching. Without this extension, a developer would need to notice the trace header in the browser network tab, copy it, open the AWS Console, navigate to X-Ray, paste the trace ID, and then separately go to CloudWatch to find the logs. This extension collapses all of those steps into a single click inside DevTools.