Source Maps: Shipping Features Through Standards
Published on 10 March 2026
Source maps are a vital part of modern web development. Today, we have an official standard, a large group of members, and many exciting features in development! But it wasn't always this way.
It may surprise you to learn that, for years, there was no official standard describing the source map format. On one hand, it is incredible that for 10 years, bundlers, browsers, and devtools worked together with only a shared Google Doc between them! On the other hand, it became impossible to add new features, deprecate old features, and build the necessary devtools to support dozens of deviations.
Why do we need Source Maps? #
Web development used to be simple! You’d write a bit of JavaScript, stick it in a