Request Capture & Decoding

TagDragon automatically captures and decodes tracking network requests as they happen, giving you a real-time view of every tag firing on the inspected page.

How Capture Works

TagDragon uses the Chrome DevTools Protocol to intercept network requests in real-time. When you open DevTools and navigate to the TagDragon panel, it immediately begins monitoring all HTTP/HTTPS traffic from the inspected tab.

Automatic detection — No configuration needed. TagDragon identifies tracking requests by matching URLs against its built-in library of 59 provider patterns.
Real-time monitoring — Requests appear instantly as pages load and users interact with elements on the page.
Non-intrusive — TagDragon observes traffic passively. It does not modify, block, or redirect any requests (except for the optional Adobe Environment Switcher).

Pause & Resume

Use the Pause button in the toolbar (or press Ctrl+L) to temporarily stop capturing new requests.

While paused, the panel shows an amber indicator so you don’t forget
Existing requests remain visible and interactive
Resume by clicking the button again — new requests start flowing in immediately

When to use: Pause is useful when you want to isolate specific interactions. For example, pause before clicking a button, then examine only the requests triggered by that action.

Sort Order

Toggle between two sort modes using the Sort button in the toolbar:

Newest first — Most recent requests at the top (default). Best for seeing what just happened.
Oldest first — First requests at the top. Useful for tracing the chronological order of page load events.

Your sort preference persists across sessions.

Auto-Pruning

On high-traffic sites, the request list can grow quickly. Auto-pruning automatically removes the oldest requests when the total exceeds a configurable threshold.

Default threshold: 500 requests
Configurable in Settings — adjust the limit to your needs
Enabled by default — prevents memory issues on pages with hundreds of tracking calls
When auto-prune triggers, the oldest requests are removed to make room for new ones

See Settings for configuration options.

Request List Columns

Each request in the list shows key information at a glance:

Provider icon & color — Every provider has a unique color for quick visual identification
Event name — The decoded event or hit type (e.g., page_view, track, tc.load)
Timestamp — When the request was captured (format configurable in Settings)
Status code — HTTP response status (200, 204, 404, etc.)
Duration — Response time in milliseconds
Size — Response body size in bytes

How Decoding Works

When TagDragon captures a request, it automatically decodes the raw URL parameters into human-readable output:

Pattern matching — The URL is matched against known provider patterns (e.g., /collect for GA4, /b/ss/ for Adobe Analytics)
Parameter extraction — Query string and POST body parameters are parsed and decoded
Category grouping — Parameters are organized into collapsible sections (e.g., “Event Parameters”, “User Properties”, “Traffic Sources”)
Value translation — Encoded values are converted to readable format where possible (e.g., base64 → plain text, URL-encoded → decoded)

This gives you an instant, structured view of what data each tracking call is sending — without manually parsing URL strings.

Provider Colors

Each of the 59 providers has a unique color assigned to it. This color appears as a left border on each request row, making it easy to visually distinguish between providers at a glance.

Compact Mode

Toggle Compact rows in the toolbar or Settings to display requests in a denser layout with reduced padding. This is useful on high-traffic pages where you need to see more requests on screen.

Tips & Best Practices

Pause before clicking — Want to see exactly which requests a button click triggers? Pause first, click, then examine the new requests
Use auto-prune on heavy sites — Pages with many tags can generate hundreds of requests. Set a reasonable threshold in Settings
Sort for your workflow — Newest-first for debugging “what just happened”, oldest-first for tracing page load sequences
Compact mode for overview — Switch to compact rows when you need a bird’s-eye view of many requests

Detail Tabs — Inspect decoded parameters across 5 detail views
Filtering & Search — Find specific requests with text search and filters
Provider Filter — Show or hide individual providers
Providers — Complete list of supported providers
Settings — Configure capture behavior and display options