It has been around 6 months since we released Sidekick as a standalone solution. It is time for our biggest update ever.

You can see where we were at day zero here: https://www.runsidekick.com/blog/announcing-sidekick-instant-live-debugging-to-fix-software-bugs

At the beginning we were describing Sidekick as;

“a modern live debugging tool that helps development teams to understand their code instantly by getting snapshots of their running applications wherever they run.”

Initially, improving developers’ day-to-day debugging routines with tracepoints aka non-breaking breakpoints was our main goal. As we got to know our customers and the market more, we discovered that Sidekick has a lot more to bring to the table. First, we added log points and give our users the ability to collect traces and generate logs on-demand without stopping & redeploying their applications. Then we started working on discovering the extra benefits of Sidekick-generated data. As an initial step, we developed an MVP for Sidekick Node.js Client that lets you use your generated data programmatically.

A subset of what we achieved in this relatively short period of time;

• Node.js support
• Team support
• New Sidekick Action : Logpoints!
• Webhooks support
• Visual Studio Code extension
• Improved IntelliJ IDEA plugin
• Collaboration support
• Improved On-premise solution with Web IDE support
• Newer & better Web IDE with improved user experience
• Sandbox page for frictionless onboarding
• OpenTelemetry support for Sidekick Agents
• Improved data reduction at the edge
• REST API → allowing programmatically managing Tracepoints & Logpoints
• Sidekick Node.js Client
• Sidekick recipes → Ingest your Sidekick-generated data to your observability platform : https://docs.runsidekick.com/sidekick-recipes

Team Sidekick after the latest sprint

One thing led to another and we started to discover new surface areas for Sidekick. Now it is a headless addition to your observability stack. With new OpenTelemetry support and REST API, it came to a stage where it allows you to put your logpoints / tracepoints programmatically and use the generated data again using your programming skills. A true developer-first tool that makes the developers a part of the core loop.

Today;

In addition to its live debugger superpowers, Sidekick is a plus one for your observability stack.

Our journey continues and there are many more steps to come, but the big news is future of Sidekick is bright and open! Open as in Open-Source!

🥁🥁🥁Drum rolls!🥁🥁🥁

Sidekick is now open-source!

With this release anybody will be able to have thier self hosted Sidekick instances, this will open up new opportunites for community to meet live debugging and contribute to Sidekick.

Sidekick Open Source Github Repository: https://github.com/runsidekick/sidekick (don't forget to give us a ⭐)

We still have a lot to do and we are constantly looking for feedbacks and contributors. Your support is important for improving Sidekick's live debugging experience more.

Please let us know your invaluable ideas because they will guide us on our path to discovering the future of application observability. You can get in touch with us through Twitter, and join our Discord community.