If you run component build --dev your build output become almost commented out and at the end you see a line which looks like so:
//# sourceURL=file.js"
Actually this works in Chrome without problems, but Firefox doesn't support it and Safari show you the reference files but the breakpoints don't work.
Furthermore you have aliases for the registered modules with the --dev option. With the aliases you can open the browser console and require aliases instead of the full module name.
If a local components name is unique in your app, you can just require the name. Otherwise you need to use a canonical path, relative to the root component, starting with ./, for instance you have defined to paths in your root component: ['view', 'model'] and in each of them a user component. Then you need to require('./view/user').
If you want to require another file than defined in the .main field of your component, you also need a canonical path.
Ditto for remote componets, for instance you can require('emitter') if you have only one component with the name. If there is a name clash, you can type require('component~emitter'), joining username and repository with ~. The canonical paths contains the version as well, like: [email protected]