Angular DevTools

Inspect Angular component trees, signals, dependency injection, and routes — at dev time, build time, or through a coding agent. Built with Devframe so the same tool runs as an embedded panel, standalone CLI, static report, MCP server, or Chrome DevTools extension.

Features

• Component inspector — discover components, inputs, outputs, and source files
• Signal graph — visualize signal, computed, linkedSignal, effect nodes and their dependency edges (Angular 19+)
• DI inspector — browse the injector hierarchy (element and environment) with providers at each level (Angular 17+)
• Route inspector — list registered routes from source
• Build metadata — Angular version, TypeScript version, SSR status
• Agent-native — all inspectors exposed as MCP tools and resources
• Deep linking — URL hash navigates to a specific tab (#tab=signals)
• Page overlay — highlights components in the running app

Install

npm install @santoshyadavdev/ng-devtools devframe

For MCP agent support, also install the optional peer:

npm install @devframes/agentic

How to Use

Embedded in an Angular app (Express SSR)

Add the devframe middleware to your Express server:

// server.ts
import { initDevframe } from 'devframe/initiate'
import ngDevtools from '@santoshyadavdev/ng-devtools/devframe'

const devtools = initDevframe(ngDevtools, { base: '/__ng-devtools/' })
app.use(devtools.nodeMiddleware)

Open http://localhost:4000/__ng-devtools/ to see the devtools UI.

Standalone CLI

# Dev server with live RPC
npx @santoshyadavdev/ng-devtools dev

# Static report (offline HTML)
npx @santoshyadavdev/ng-devtools build --outDir dist-report

# MCP server for coding agents
npx @santoshyadavdev/ng-devtools mcp

MCP Server for Coding Agents

Claude Desktop — add to claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ng-devtools": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["@santoshyadavdev/ng-devtools", "mcp"]
    }
  }
}

VS Code — add to .vscode/mcp.json:

{
  "servers": {
    "ng-devtools": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["@santoshyadavdev/ng-devtools", "mcp"]
    }
  }
}

When embedded in Express, the MCP endpoint is also available over HTTP at /__ng-devtools/__mcp.

Agent Tools

Tool	Description
ng-devtools:get-routes	List Angular routes from source
ng-devtools:get-components	Discover components, inputs, outputs
ng-devtools:build-meta	Angular/TS versions, SSR status
ng-devtools:highlight	Highlight a component in the page
ng-devtools:inspect-signals	Signal graph for a component
ng-devtools:inspect-providers	DI providers and resolution path

Agent Resources

Resource	Content
ng-devtools:component-tree	Live component hierarchy
ng-devtools:signal-graph	Signal dependency graph
ng-devtools:injector-tree	DI injector hierarchy

Vite DevTools Dock

Mount as a dock panel inside Vite DevTools:

// vite.config.ts
import { viteDevframeHub } from '@devframes/vite/hub'
import { createUi } from '@devframes/hub-ui'
import ngDevtools from '@santoshyadavdev/ng-devtools/devframe'

export default defineConfig({
  plugins: [
    viteDevframeHub({
      devframes: [ngDevtools],
      ui: createUi({ branding: { productName: 'Angular DevTools' } }),
    }),
  ],
})

Chrome DevTools Extension

See the Chrome Extension section below for how to package this as a Chrome extension.

Browser Overlay

The overlay runs inside the user's Angular page and collects live component, signal, and DI data:

import { initOverlay } from '@santoshyadavdev/ng-devtools/overlay'

const dispose = await initOverlay()

Development

# Install dependencies
pnpm install

# Dev server for the devtools UI (with live RPC)
pnpm devtools:dev

# Build the devtools UI SPA
pnpm devtools:build

# Build assets into the publishable package
pnpm devtools:build-pkg

# Run the Angular host app
pnpm start

Publishing

The devtool ships as two npm packages:

Package	Contents
@santoshyadavdev/ng-devtools	Node-side logic, RPC, CLI, overlay
@santoshyadavdev/ng-devtools-assets	Built SPA (served at runtime via CDN or local install)

# Build assets, then publish both
pnpm devtools:publish

Keep versions in sync — the tool references the assets package by exact version.

Chrome DevTools Extension

To distribute this as a Chrome DevTools extension, you need a thin Chrome extension shell that opens the devtools UI in a DevTools panel. The built SPA already works standalone — the extension just embeds it.

1. Create the extension scaffold

Create an extension/ directory:

extension/
  manifest.json
  devtools.html
  devtools.js
  panel.html

2. extension/manifest.json

{
  "manifest_version": 3,
  "name": "Angular DevTools",
  "version": "0.0.1",
  "description": "Inspect Angular components, signals, DI, and routes.",
  "devtools_page": "devtools.html",
  "permissions": ["scripting"],
  "host_permissions": ["<all_urls>"],
  "icons": {
    "128": "icon-128.png"
  }
}

3. extension/devtools.html and extension/devtools.js

<!-- devtools.html -->
<!doctype html>
<script src="devtools.js"></script>

// devtools.js — creates the panel in Chrome DevTools
chrome.devtools.panels.create(
  'Angular',
  'icon-128.png',
  'panel.html'
)

4. extension/panel.html

This is where the built SPA loads. Copy the built assets (dist/devtools-ui/) into the extension and point panel.html at the SPA's index.html:

<!-- panel.html — the devtools SPA loads here -->
<!doctype html>
<html>
  <head><meta charset="utf-8" /></head>
  <body>
    <iframe src="ui/index.html" style="width:100%;height:100vh;border:none;"></iframe>
  </body>
</html>

5. Build the extension

# Build the devtools SPA
pnpm devtools:build

# Copy into the extension
mkdir -p extension/ui
cp -r dist/devtools-ui/* extension/ui/

6. Load in Chrome

1. Go to chrome://extensions
2. Enable Developer mode
3. Click Load unpacked → select the extension/ directory
4. Open DevTools on any Angular app → the Angular panel appears

7. Publish to Chrome Web Store

1. Zip the extension/ directory
2. Go to the Chrome Developer Dashboard
3. Click New item → upload the zip
4. Fill in the listing details and submit for review

Connecting the extension to the running app

The extension panel loads the SPA in static mode by default. To connect it to a live dev server for real-time RPC, the extension's content script or background service worker needs to detect the devframe's __connection.json on the inspected page and pass the connection to the panel. This is the same pattern the official Angular DevTools Chrome extension uses — a content script bridges the inspected page and the DevTools panel via chrome.runtime.connect.

License

MIT