How to install and use AH Debugger

Installation

• To install the extension go to the Chrome Web Store and add it to Chrome.
• You will see “It can read and change all your data on all websites”. This is a common permission required by ALL debugger extensions, you can verify this by uninstalling other debuggers you have and reinstalling them. We will never collect, store, or modify your data in any form. We don’t even have analytics tracking in our own extension.
• After installing, we suggest keeping it pinned to your browser’s top bar. Click the “puzzle piece” icon, then click the “pin” icon next to AH Debugger.

How to use the Debugger?

AH Debugger gives you full visibility into your analytics events directly in the browser. We offer:

• Console Overlay:A lightweight floating panel that sits on top of any page and shows your analytics requests and dataLayer pushes in real time, color-coded by vendor with error highlighting. You can drag it anywhere on the page, switch between a live request feed and a dataLayer feed, expand individual events to inspect their full JSON payload, and copy events to clipboard. To open it, click the toggle button in the extension popup.
• DevTools Panel:Right-click anywhere on the page and click Inspect. In the DevTools panel that opens, click the double right-arrow icon (top right) and select AH Debugger from the dropdown. Here you get a full request table with pagination, grouped or flattened views, per-vendor filtering, and a global search across all collected requests, a capability no other debugging extension on the market offers. You can expand any request to inspect its full URL, query parameters, POST body, response status, and error details.
• DataLayer Viewer:Access this from the extension popup. It auto-detects your GTM containers and all associated data layers, shows every push with timestamps, and lets you switch between raw, flattened, and formatted views. You can also use the built-in DataLayer Simulator to push synthetic events to the dataLayer without touching your code, ideal for testing tags before deploying.
• Consent Mode Checker:Available in the popup, this gives you a real-time view of Google Consent Mode states (analytics_storage, ad_storage, ad_user_data, ad_personalization), Bing UET consent, and Shopify consent. You can inspect GTM container details, full dataLayer command history, and cross-domain tracking configuration all in one place.

To learn more about everything AH Debugger can do, read What is AH Debugger →

Built-in Checks

AH Debugger runs automated checks on the requests collected during your session and surfaces any issues directly inside the DevTools panel. You don’t need to configure anything, these run automatically as you browse.

Current built-in checks include:

• Consent Mode validation - Verifies that the gcs parameter is present on GA4 hits, confirming Consent Mode is active and signaling correctly
• Measurement ID format - Checks that your GA4 tid parameter follows the expected G- prefix format
• Ecommerce items validation - Flags purchase, add_to_cart, view_item, and other ecommerce events that are missing a populated items array
• Purchase event completeness - Validates that purchase events include transaction_id, value, and currency

All results are shown with pass/fail status and severity levels (error vs warning) so you can immediately prioritize what needs fixing. We are continuously expanding the built-in check library, if you have a check you’d like to see, let us know.