Having source maps in production is not a best practice. Then why the error?

[alex-vukov]

FAQ

• Yes, my issue is not about variability or throttling.
• Yes, my issue is not about a specific accessibility audit (file with axe-core instead).
• Yes, my issue is not answered by other FAQs.

URL

www.google.com

What happened?

Whenever I test a website with Lighthouse I always see this error Missing source maps for large first-party JavaScript. It is a common (and best) practice not to enable source maps on production for security reasons. Why is this message always shown as an error under Best Practices?

What did you expect?

I expect not to see this error because source maps should only be enabled on internal and test websites

What have you tried?

No response

How were you running Lighthouse?

Chrome DevTools

Lighthouse Version

12.0.0

Chrome Version

126.0.6478.127

Node Version

No response

OS

MacOS

Relevant log output

No response