CKEditor 5 inspector

The official CKEditor 5 rich text editor instance inspector for developers.

Documentation 📖

Learn how to use the inspector and see it live in the Development tools guide.

Quick start

Include the script to load the inspector:

<script src="path/to/inspector.js"></script>

Call CKEditorInspector.attach( editor ) when the editor instance is ready:

ClassicEditor
	.create( ... )
	.then( editor => {
		CKEditorInspector.attach( editor );
	} )
	.catch( error => {
		console.error( error );
	} );

Note: You can attach to multiple editors under unique names at a time. Then you can select the editor instance in the drop–down inside the inspector panel to switch context.

CKEditorInspector.attach( {
	'header-editor': editor1,
	'footer-editor': editor2,
	// ...
} );

Call CKEditorInspector.detach( name ) to detach the inspector from an editor instance.

Tip: CKEditorInspector.attach() returns the generated name of the editor if it was not provided.

// Attach the inspector to two editor instances:
const generatedName = CKEditorInspector.attach( editor1 );
CKEditorInspector.attach( { arbitraryName: editor2 } );

// ...

// Detach from the instances:
CKEditorInspector.detach( generatedName );
CKEditorInspector.detach( 'arbitraryName' );

Attaching to all editor instances

When multiple CKEditor 5 instances are running in DOM, you can call CKEditorInspector.attachToAll( [ options ] ) to attach the inspector to all of them at the same time. A shorthand for CKEditorInspector.attach( editor, [ options ] ) called individually for each instance.

// Discover all editor instances in DOM and inspect them all.
CKEditorInspector.attachToAll();

You can also pass the optional configuration object to this method.

Note: This method works with CKEditor v12.3.0 or later. Earlier editor versions will not be discovered.

Toggling the inspector visibility

Click the button in the upper-right corner of the inspector to quickly show or hide it. You can also use the Alt+F12 (⌥+F12 on Mac) keyboard shortcut.

Configuration

You can pass configuration options to CKEditorInspector.attach() and CKEditorInspector.attachToAll() methods as the last argument:

CKEditorInspector.attach( editor, {
	// configuration options
} );

CKEditorInspector.attach( { 'editor-name': editor }, {
	// configuration options
} );

CKEditorInspector.attachToAll( {
	// configuration options
} );

isCollapsed

To attach the inspector with a collapsed UI, use the options.isCollapsed option.

Note: This option works when CKEditorInspector.attach() is called for the first time only.

CKEditorInspector.attach( { 'editor-name': editor }, {
	// Attach the inspector to the "editor" but the UI will be collapsed.
	isCollapsed: true
} );

Development

Note

This project requires pnpm v10 or higher. You can check your version with pnpm --version and update if needed with npm install -g pnpm@latest.

To configure the environment:

git clone git@github.com:ckeditor/ckeditor5-inspector.git
cd ckeditor5-inspector
pnpm install

Working with the code

Start the watch build:

pnpm run dev

Then open one of the demo pages from the sample directory and refresh the browser manually after each rebuild.

Building

To build the production version of the inspector, run:

pnpm run build

Testing

To run tests, execute:

pnpm run test

Releasing the package

CircleCI automates the release process and can release both channels: stable (X.Y.Z) and pre-releases (X.Y.Z-alpha.X, etc.).

Before you start, you need to prepare the changelog entries.

1. Make sure the #master branch is up-to-date: git fetch && git checkout master && git pull.
2. Prepare a release branch: git checkout -b release-[YYYYMMDD] where YYYYMMDD is the current day.
3. Generate the changelog entries: pnpm run release:prepare-changelog.
   • You can specify the release date by passing the --date option, e.g., --date=2025-06-11.
   • By passing the --dry-run option, you can check what the script will do without actually modifying the files.
   • Read all the entries, correct poor wording and other issues, wrap code names in backticks to format them, etc.
   • Add the missing the/a articles, () to method names, "it's" -> "its", etc.
   • A newly introduced feature should have just one changelog entry – something like "The initial implementation of the FOO feature." with a description of what it does.
4. Commit all changes and prepare a new pull request targeting the #master branch.
5. Ping the @ckeditor/ckeditor-5-platform team to review the pull request and trigger the release process.

License

Licensed under a dual-license model, this software is available under:

• the GNU General Public License Version 2 or later,
• or commercial license terms from CKSource Holding sp. z o.o.

For more information, see: https://ckeditor.com/legal/ckeditor-licensing-options.