Make debug console evaluation results interactive and expandable

[anilzeybek]

What are you proposing?

Make evaluation results in the Debug Console interactive and expandable.

When you evaluate something that returns a structured value like an object, array, or map, you should be able to click and expand it, just like in the Variables panel.

Right now, evaluating myObject prints a flat string like < {prop1: "hello", prop2: [1, 2, 3], nested: {...} }. There’s no way to explore it. If it’s deeply nested or truncated, you’re stuck.

Why does this matter?

The Debug Console is where you do quick, ad-hoc inspection while debugging. When it only shows flat text, you end up doing extra work:

• Switching to the Variables panel and hunting for the variable
• Adding a watch expression, then expanding it in the Watch section
• Evaluating properties one by one like myObject.prop1, myObject.prop2.subProp

All of this interrupts the flow. If results were directly explorable, you could stay in the console and move faster. It would feel more like a real REPL instead of just a log output.

Are there any examples or context?

VS Code already does this really well. In its Debug Console:

• Evaluating myObj shows {...} with an expand arrow
• Clicking it reveals all properties
• Nested values can be expanded further
• You can right-click for actions like copy value or add to watch

IntelliJ / WebStorm offer similar behavior in their debug consoles.

You can also see the gap inside Zed itself. The Variables panel already supports expanding, collapsing, copying values, editing, and more. The console just doesn’t reuse those capabilities for evaluation results.