Stackdriver Debugger

Stackdriver Debugger is a powerful tool in the Google Cloud ecosystem that allows developers to inspect the state of a running application in real-time, without stopping the application. It provides a way to analyze your application’s performance, diagnose issues, and understand how your code is behaving under different conditions.

Stackdriver Debugger integrates seamlessly with your Google Cloud applications. Here are some key points:

• Real-time application state inspection.
• Integration with Google Cloud Platform services.
• Snapshots capture the state of your application at a specific moment.
• Support for multiple programming languages.

3.1 Enable Stackdriver Debugger

To get started, you must enable Stackdriver Debugger for your Google Cloud project.

gcloud services enable clouddebugger.googleapis.com

3.2 Install the Debugger Agent

Install the Stackdriver Debugger agent in your application. For example, in a Python application, you can do this by adding the following to your requirements.txt:

google-cloud-debugger

3.3 Configure the Debugger

Use the following code snippet to configure the Debugger in your application:

from google.cloud import debugger

# Initialize Debugger
debugger.enable()  # This enables Stackdriver Debugger

3.4 Deploy Your Application

Once your application is configured, deploy it to Google Cloud.

3.5 Take Snapshots

You can take snapshots of your application state using the following command:

gcloud debug snapshots take <your_project_id>

When using Stackdriver Debugger, keep these best practices in mind:

• Regularly capture snapshots during critical application phases.
• Integrate Debugger with your CI/CD pipeline for continuous monitoring.
• Use descriptive labels for snapshots for easier identification.
• Monitor application performance metrics alongside snapshots for comprehensive insights.