debug

The debug component enables component-to-DOM serialization.

Example

<a-scene debug></a-scene>

Component-to-DOM Serialization

By default, for performance reasons, A-Frame does not update the DOM with component data. This also means mutation observers will not fire. If we open the browser’s DOM inspector, we will see only the component names (and not the values) are visible.

<a-entity geometry material position rotation></a-entity>

A-Frame stores the component data in memory. Updating the DOM takes CPU time for converting internal component data to strings. If we want to see the DOM update for debugging purposes, we can attach the debug component to the scene. Components will check for an enabled debug component before trying to serialize to the DOM. Then we will be able to view component data in the DOM:

<a-entity geometry="primitive: box" material="color: red" position="1 2 3" rotation="0 180 0"></a-entity>

Make sure that this component is not active in production.

Manually Serializing to DOM

To manually serialize to DOM, use Entity.flushToDOM or Component.flushToDOM:

document.querySelector('a-entity').components.position.flushToDOM();  // Flush a component.
document.querySelector('a-entity').flushToDOM();  // Flush an entity.
document.querySelector('a-entity').flushToDOM(true);  // Flush an entity and its children.
document.querySelector('a-scene').flushToDOM(true);  // Flush every entity.