How to activate XDebug step debugging

Configure PHPStorm / IDE to accept incoming debug connections

In PHPStorm for example:

By default, the step debugger will activate if a “trigger” is present. If you always want it to activate, set xdebug.start_with_request to yes.

Trigger the debugger for a web application

Using a browser extension

You can use the following extensions to trigger the debugger:

• Firefox: Xdebug Helper by JetBrains (source).
• Chrome (and Chromium derived browsers): Xdebug Helper by JetBrains (source).
• Edge: Xdebug Helper (source).
• XDebugToggle for Safari (source).

Manually triggering via a HTTP cookie

You can tell XDebug to initiate debugging for multiple subsequent requests by setting the XDEBUG_SESSION cookie.

If you include a XDEBUG_SESSION_START=<any-value> GET or POST param, XDebug will set the XDEBUG_SESSION cookie for you.

Before XDebug 3.1, the cookie would last for one hour but from version 3.1 onwards, it lasts forever.

You can set the XDEBUG_SESSION_STOP GET or POST param to remove the cookie.

Trigger the debugger for a command line script

Just set the XDEBUG_SESSION environment variable to any value and run your command. For example

export XDEBUG_SESSION=1 && ./bin/some-script.php

Trigger the debugger via xdebug_break()

You can call xdebug_break() to trigger the debugger as long as xdebug.start_with_request is set to trigger.

Troubleshoot trigger not working

See here.

Links

• XDebug docs