chrome.experimental.devtools.* APIs
The following API modules provide support for extending
Chrome Developer Tools:
Caution:
Don't depend on these experimental APIs. They might disappear, and they
will change.
Also, the Chrome Developer Dashboard doesn't allow you to
upload extensions that use experimental APIs.
How to use DevTools APIs
-
Developer Tools APIs are currently experimental, so please start with
the steps for using experimental extension
APIs.
-
Specify the "devtools_page" field in your extension's manifest and make
sure you have "experimental" permission:
{
"name": ...
"version": "1.0",
"minimum_chrome_version": "10.0",
"devtools_page": "devtools.html",
"permissions": [ "experimental" ... ],
...
}
-
An instance of the devtools_page specified in your extension's manifest
will be created for every Developer Tools window opened. The page may add
other extension pages as panels and sidebars to the Developer Tools window
using experimental.devtools.panels
API.
-
The chrome.experimental.devtools.* API modules are available only to the
pages loaded within the Developer Tools window. Content scripts and other
extension pages do not have these APIs. Thus, the APIs are available only
through the lifetime of the Developer Tools window.
- The APIs available to extension pages within the Developer Tools
window include all experimental.devtools modules
listed above and chrome.extension API.
Other extension APIs are not available to the Developer Tools pages, but
you may invoke them by sending a request to the background page of your
extension, similarly to how it's done in the
content scripts.
-
Give us feedback!
Your comments and suggestions help us improve the APIs and decide which
ones should move from experimental to supported.
More information
For information on the standard APIs that extensions can use, see
chrome.* APIs and
Other APIs.
Examples
You can find examples that use Developer Tools APIs in
Samples.