How to view the "Recs Box" for debugging Target Recommendations with AEP Web SDK? | Community
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March 12, 2026
Question

How to view the "Recs Box" for debugging Target Recommendations with AEP Web SDK?

  • March 12, 2026
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I'm struggling to find an efficient way to debug Recommendations. With at.js, I used mboxTrace, which provided a very clear "Recs Box" showing exactly which criteria were used, which entities were returned, and why certain items were excluded.

Now that I'm using Web SDK and the AEP Debugger, I find the debugging process much more difficult. I can see the network calls, but I miss that high-level summary of the Recommendations logic.

What I've tried:

  • Using the AEP Debugger Extension to look at Edge Traces.

  • Digging through the interact response payloads in the Network tab.

My Questions:

  1. Is there a way to get a visual "Recs box" similar to the old mboxTrace functionality in at.js?

  2. In the AEP Debugger, where exactly should I look to see the Criteria details and Exclusion reasons for a specific Recommendations activity?

  3. Are there any third-party tools or specific "Edge Trace" configurations that make the JSON output more readable for Recs-heavy implementations?

  4. How do you effectively validate that the entity.id being passed in the current session is actually being used by the algorithm in real-time?