Getting started

Install The New Debug Bar

Add it to your Laravel app with one Composer command. Laravel discovers the package and the bar appears automatically while you work locally.

Install the package

Run this command from your Laravel app:

composer require --dev newdebugbar/newdebugbar:dev-main

Keep The New Debug Bar in require-dev so production installs skip it.

Requirements

Before installing, make sure the app meets these requirements:

PHP 8.1 or newer.
Laravel 10 or newer.
A Laravel app running in its local environment.

Check that it works

Open any normal page in your app while Laravel is using the local environment. The bar should appear at the bottom of the browser.

The installed request inspector with the selected route and response — A working installation captures the intended local page and lets you open its request and query evidence.

Optional configuration

The defaults work without a config file. Publish one only when you need to change a setting:

php artisan vendor:publish --tag=newdebugbar-config

To leave the package installed but turn it off, add this to your .env file:

NEWDEBUGBAR_ENABLED=false

Troubleshooting

The bar does not appear

Confirm that Laravel reports the local environment and that APP_DEBUG is true. If you explicitly set NEWDEBUGBAR_ENABLED, that value takes precedence over debug mode. If your app uses another name for local work, publish the config and add that name to newdebugbar.environments. After changing config, run php artisan config:clear and refresh the page.

Composer reports a Livewire conflict

The New Debug Bar requires Livewire 4. Apps that already depend on Livewire 3 are not supported yet, even though an app does not otherwise need to use Livewire itself. Ask Composer to explain the current dependency conflict without changing the project:

composer require --dev newdebugbar/newdebugbar:dev-main --dry-run

Use the PHP version required by your Laravel app

PHP 8.1 is the package’s lowest declared PHP requirement. Your selected Laravel version can require a newer PHP runtime. Composer checks the combined requirements; do not read separate minimum versions as a promise that every combination works.

Check the current Composer constraint when diagnosing a dependency conflict. The dependency check in Troubleshooting performs resolution without changing the project.

Choose the next useful guide

The bar is missing or will not open — separate disabled capture, unsupported response bodies, and browser startup errors.
Local environments — keep the web process, MCP client, and worker on the correct application setup.
Queries — work through a concrete N+1 example.

Next step

Give your coding agent exact debug data

Connect the local MCP server so your agent can inspect saved request profiles instead of guessing from logs.

Open the MCP setup guide