Changelog
Release Notes
Every change, every version. Patch for bug fixes, minor for features, major for breaking changes.
v1.46.0HEAD →August 25, 2026~2
~Improved
- Help page — keyboard shortcuts and every tool guide now use the site's inspector-panel styling instead of plain tables and inline styles; section headers dropped their emoji icons for a cleaner look.
- VS Code extension page — the features list now matches the same inspector-panel styling, and the comparison table highlights Kernel API Tester's own row.
v1.45.0August 25, 2026~1
~Improved
- This changelog is now a git-log-style commit history — a version timeline with a real change-count summary per release, instead of a flat list.
v1.44.0August 25, 2026~1
~Improved
- Each WordPress plugin's detail page on kerneltools.dev/wordpress-plugin now shows its features as a properties-inspector list instead of a plain table, with version/requirements/status collapsed into one line.
v1.43.0August 25, 2026~1
~Improved
- The WordPress plugins page now shows all six plugins in a bento-style grid, with Kernel Forms featured as the largest tile.
v1.42.0August 25, 2026~1
~Improved
- The homepage's feature grid is now a bento-style layout, with Console, Performance Timeline, Certificate Inspector, and API Tester featured as larger tiles.
v1.41.0August 25, 2026+1
+New
- kerneltools.dev redesigned with a new visual identity — DevTools-inspired panel styling, a monospace display typeface, and a light theme throughout the site.
v1.31.2August 15, 2026!1
!Fixed
- Packaged extension ZIPs now use correct forward-slash internal paths, improving compatibility with strict store validators and unzip tools.
v1.31.1August 12, 2026+1~1
+New
- Kernel DevTools is now live on the Chrome Web Store and Edge Add-ons, alongside Firefox — install directly from your browser's store.
~Improved
- The "Update available" banner now opens your browser's own store listing when one exists, instead of always linking to the Chrome ZIP.
v1.31.0August 12, 2026~1
~Improved
- Panel redesigned with a light theme — white/gray background, dark text — matching your browser's native DevTools look, replacing the previous dark theme.
v1.30.6August 10, 2026!5
!Fixed
- Console: Error objects now show their full stack trace, and console.clear() now syncs to the panel.
- Network: fixed a crash when reading XHR responses with responseType set to "json".
- Network: fetch() responses no longer get stuck showing "pending".
- Network: binary request and response bodies are now decoded and displayed correctly.
- Network capture rate limit increased from 50 to 500 requests/second.
v1.30.1August 8, 2026!1
!Fixed
- The "Claim 24h unlock" button is now disabled when an ad blocker is detected, preventing a broken unlock flow.
v1.30.0August 8, 2026+2~2
+New
- Automatic key rotation (HKDF) for the ad-unlock system — encryption keys now rotate every 30 days with no manual steps.
- Safari support marked "Coming Soon" on the website, with the build pipeline ready.
~Improved
- Completed a 10-point security audit: CORS lockdown, rate limiting, security headers, input validation and more.
- Unified deploy pipeline — a single script now builds, packages, and deploys the extension, website, and email worker.
v1.28.0August 7, 2026+1
+New
- Per-tab ad-unlock system — unlock individual premium tabs for 24 hours instead of all-or-nothing.
v1.27.0August 6, 2026+10~3
+New
- Ad-unlock system — watch a short Carbon Ad to unlock all pro features for 24 hours. No subscription required.
- Export gate — first 5 network exports per day are free; a quick ad view unlocks unlimited exports until midnight.
- Update checker — in-panel banner checks for new versions every 24 h and links to the release notes.
- Network Excel export — download network requests as .xlsx with optional URL filter.
- Network PDF export — download network requests as PDF with URL filter and mobile proxy instructions.
- Mobile DevTools tab — dedicated landing page explaining how to use Kernel DevTools on mobile via proxy.
- Safari extension — Safari build now available for download directly from kerneltools.dev.
~Improved
- Network Inspector — request bodies now show readable descriptions instead of [Binary] for binary content.
- Privacy Policy — updated to accurately describe the ad-unlock token flow, Carbon Ads on the unlock page, and all locally stored data (device ID, unlock state, daily export count).
- Version numbering — version is now computed from full commit history using conventional commits (feat→minor, fix→patch). Single source of truth in root package.json; manifests get the version injected at build time.
+Infrastructure
- New domain — kerneltools.dev (previously no custom domain).
- SEO — sitemap.xml, robots.txt, Open Graph image, Twitter card, canonical URLs and JSON-LD structured data.
- Contact email — [email protected] (configure Cloudflare Email Routing to receive mail).
v1.0.0August 3, 2026+26
+Initial release
- Console panel — log/warn/error capture with timestamps and JavaScript eval.
- Network Inspector — full fetch/XHR interceptor with headers, body and timing.
- DOM Tree — collapsible live tree with CSS selector picker.
- Storage Editor — read/write localStorage, sessionStorage and cookies.
- WebSocket Inspector — live frame monitor with search, direction filter and auto-scroll.
- API Tester — HTTP client with collections, environment variables and request history.
- Mock API Interceptor — URL rule engine (exact, prefix, regex) with hit counter.
- CSS Inspector — computed styles editor and live injection.
- Security Headers — grade CSP, HSTS and 4 more headers A–F.
- Certificate Inspector — TLS grade, validity, SANs and HSTS preload via crt.sh.
- DNS Leak Checker — WebRTC ICE candidate harvesting with RFC1918 filtering.
- Tracker Map — third-party tracker detection by domain and category.
- Performance Timeline — FCP, LCP, TTFB and full resource waterfall.
- Accessibility Auditor — 10 WCAG 2.1 checks with element pointers.
- Network Diff — A/B request snapshot diff.
- Color Palette — extract all page colours with hex/RGB/HSL.
- Fonts Inspector — list all loaded typefaces with source and weight.
- IndexedDB Inspector — browse databases, stores and entries.
- PWA Inspector — manifest, service worker and installability checks.
- Service Worker Inspector — registration, scope and cache storage.
- Permissions Inspector — query and display page permission states.
- Memory Inspector — JS heap snapshot via performance.memory API.
- Robots.txt & Sitemap — fetch and display robots.txt and sitemap.xml for any domain.
- Manifest V3 — Chrome and Edge compatible.
- Ctrl+Shift+Y keyboard shortcut to focus the Kernel Extension panel.
- Extension icon click opens the panel in a standalone tab.