I was working on some Kotlin/JVM code and ran into a familiar situation.
Everything compiled fine, but the output wasn't what I expected. I just wanted to set a breakpoint, inspect a few variables, and find the issue.
Android Studio handles this well, but sometimes I'm just working on standalone Kotlin logic, utility classes, or JVM modules. Opening a full IDE for that felt unnecessary when I already had VS Code running.
So I started experimenting with Kotlin debugging in VS Code.
What I thought would be a small weekend experiment turned into a much bigger rabbit hole involving JVM bytecode, Kotlin inline functions, and source mapping.
Eventually, I built Kotlin Debugger, an open-source VS Code extension that lets me debug Kotlin/JVM code without setting up a separate Kotlin Language Server.
It's not a replacement for Android Studio, and Android device/emulator debugging isn't supported yet. But for Kotlin/JVM work, it's been an interesting project to build.
GitHub: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=kparth01.kotlin-debugger
Curious how other Android developers work: Do you use VS Code for standalone Kotlin/JVM modules, or do you prefer keeping everything in Android Studio?
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