As larger projects get more complex, it can be hard to debug issues. Django Components provides a number of tools and approaches that can help you with that.

## Component and slot highlighting

Django Components provides a visual debugging feature that helps you understand the structure and boundaries of your components and slots. When enabled, it adds a colored border and a label around each component and slot on your rendered page.

To enable component and slot highlighting for all components and slots, set `highlight_components` and `highlight_slots` to `True` in [extensions defaults](../../../reference/settings/#django_components.app_settings.ComponentsSettings.extensions_defaults) in your `settings.py` file:

```python
from django_components import ComponentsSettings

COMPONENTS = ComponentsSettings(
    extensions_defaults={
        "debug_highlight": {
            "highlight_slots": True,
            "highlight_components": True,
        },
    },
)
```

Alternatively, you can enable highlighting for specific components by setting `Component.DebugHighlight.highlight_components` to `True`:

```python
class MyComponent(Component):
    class DebugHighlight:
        highlight_components = True
        highlight_slots = True
```

Components will be highlighted with a **blue** border and label:

![Component highlighting example](../../images/debug-highlight-components.png)

While the slots will be highlighted with a **red** border and label:

![Slot highlighting example](../../images/debug-highlight-slots.png)

!!! warning

    Use this feature ONLY in during development. Do NOT use it in production.

## Component path in errors

When an error occurs, the error message will show the path to the component that
caused the error. E.g.

```
KeyError: "An error occured while rendering components MyPage > MyLayout > MyComponent > Childomponent(slot:content)
```

The error message contains also the slot paths, so if you have a template like this:

```django
{% component "my_page" %}
    {% slot "content" %}
        {% component "table" %}
            {% slot "header" %}
                {% component "table_header" %}
                    ...  {# ERROR HERE #}
                {% endcomponent %}
            {% endslot %}
        {% endcomponent %}
    {% endslot %}
{% endcomponent %}
```

Then the error message will show the path to the component that caused the error:

```
KeyError: "An error occured while rendering components my_page > layout > layout(slot:content) > my_page(slot:content) > table > table(slot:header) > table_header > table_header(slot:content)
```

## Debug and trace logging

Django components supports [logging with Django](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/5.2/howto/logging/#logging-how-to).

To configure logging for Django components, set the `django_components` logger in
[`LOGGING`](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/5.2/ref/settings/#std-setting-LOGGING)
in `settings.py` (below).

Also see the [`settings.py` file in sampleproject](https://github.com/django-components/django-components/blob/master/sampleproject/sampleproject/settings.py) for a real-life example.

```py
import logging
import sys

LOGGING = {
    'version': 1,
    'disable_existing_loggers': False,
    "handlers": {
        "console": {
            'class': 'logging.StreamHandler',
            'stream': sys.stdout,
        },
    },
    "loggers": {
        "django_components": {
            "level": logging.DEBUG,
            "handlers": ["console"],
        },
    },
}
```

!!! info

    To set TRACE level, set `"level"` to `5`:

    ```py
    LOGGING = {
        "loggers": {
            "django_components": {
                "level": 5,
                "handlers": ["console"],
            },
        },
    }
    ```

### Logger levels

As of v0.126, django-components primarily uses these logger levels:

- `DEBUG`: Report on loading associated HTML / JS / CSS files, autodiscovery, etc.
- `TRACE`: Detailed interaction of components and slots. Logs when template tags,
  components, and slots are started / ended rendering, and when a slot is filled.

## Slot origin

When you pass a slot fill to a Component, the component and slot names is remebered
on the slot object.

Thus, you can check where a slot was filled from by printing it out:

```python
class MyComponent(Component):
    def on_render_before(self, context: Context, template: Optional[Template]):
        print(self.slots)
```

might print:

```python
{
    'content': <Slot component_name='layout' slot_name='content'>,
    'header': <Slot component_name='my_page' slot_name='header'>,
    'left_panel': <Slot component_name='layout' slot_name='left_panel'>,
}
```

## Agentic debugging

All the features above make django-components to work really well with coding AI agents
like Github Copilot or CursorAI.

To debug component rendering with LLMs, you want to provide the LLM with:

1. The components source code
2. The rendered output
3. As much additional context as possible

Your codebase already contains the components source code, but not the latter two.

### Providing rendered output

To provide the LLM with the rendered output, you can simply export the rendered output to a file.

```python
rendered = ProjectPage.render(...)
with open("result.html", "w") as f:
    f.write(rendered)
```

If you're using `render_to_response`, access the output from the `HttpResponse` object:

```python
response = ProjectPage.render_to_response(...)
with open("result.html", "wb") as f:
    f.write(response.content)
```

### Providing contextual logs

Next, we provide the agent with info on HOW we got the result that we have. We do so
by providing the agent with the trace-level logs.

In your `settings.py`, configure the trace-level logs to be written to the `django_components.log` file:

```python
LOGGING = {
    "version": 1,
    "disable_existing_loggers": False,
    "handlers": {
        "file": {
            "class": "logging.FileHandler",
            "filename": "django_components.log",
            "mode": "w",  # Overwrite the file each time
        },
    },
    "loggers": {
        "django_components": {
            "level": 5,
            "handlers": ["file"],
        },
    },
}
```

### Prompting the agent

Now, you can prompt the agent and include the trace log and the rendered output to guide the agent with debugging.

> I have a django-components (DJC) project. DJC is like if Vue or React component-based web development but made for Django ecosystem.
> 
> In the view `project_view`, I am rendering the `ProjectPage` component. However, the output is not as expected.
> The output is missing the tabs.
>
> You have access to the full log trace in `django_components.log`.
>
> You can also see the rendered output in `result.html`.
>
> With this information, help me debug the issue.
>
> First, tell me what kind of info you would be looking for in the logs, and why (how it relates to understanding the cause of the bug).
>
> Then tell me if that info was there, and what the implications are.
>
> Finally, tell me what you would do to fix the issue.