---
title: 'Debugging'
metaTitle: 'Debugging (Reference)'
metaDescription: 'This page explains how to enable debugging output for Prisma Client by setting the `DEBUG` environment variable.'
---


You can enable debugging output in Prisma Client and Prisma CLI via the [`DEBUG`](/orm/reference/environment-variables-reference#debug) environment variable. It accepts two namespaces to print debugging output:

- `prisma:engine`: Prints relevant debug messages happening in a Prisma ORM [engine](https://github.com/prisma/prisma-engines/)
- `prisma:client`: Prints relevant debug messages happening in the Prisma Client runtime
- `prisma*`: Prints all debug messages from Prisma Client or CLI
- `*`: Prints all debug messages

:::info

Prisma Client can be configured to log warnings, errors and information related to queries sent to the database. See [Configuring logging](/orm/prisma-client/observability-and-logging/logging) for more information.

:::

## Setting the `DEBUG` environment variable

Here are examples for setting these debugging options in bash:

```terminal
# enable only `prisma:engine`-level debugging output
export DEBUG="prisma:engine"

# enable only `prisma:client`-level debugging output
export DEBUG="prisma:client"

# enable both `prisma-client`- and `engine`-level debugging output
export DEBUG="prisma:client,prisma:engine"
```

To enable all `prisma` debugging options, set `DEBUG` to `prisma*`:

```terminal
export DEBUG="prisma*"
```

On Windows, use `set` instead of `export`:

```terminal
set DEBUG="prisma*"
```

To enable _all_ debugging options, set `DEBUG` to `*`:

```terminal
export DEBUG="*"
```
