Automatically open Chrome developer tools when new tab/new window is opened

On opening the developer tools, with the developer tools window in focus, press F1. This will open a settings page. Check the "Auto-open DevTools for popups".

This worked for me.

There is a command line switch for this: --auto-open-devtools-for-tabs

So for the properties on Google Chrome, use something like this:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --auto-open-devtools-for-tabs

Here is a useful link: chromium-command-line-switches

UPDATE 2:

See this answer . - 2019-11-05

You can also now have it auto-open Developer Tools in Pop-ups if they were open where you opened them from. For example, if you do not have Dev Tools open and you get a popup, it won't open with Dev Tools. But if you Have Dev Tools Open and then you click something, the popup will have Dev-Tools Automatically opened.

UPDATE:

Time has changed, you can now use --auto-open-devtools-for-tabs as in this answer – Wouter Huysentruit May 18 at 11:08

OP:

I played around with the startup string for Chrome on execute, but couldn't get it to persist to new tabs.
I also thought about a defined PATH method that you could invoke from prompt. This is possible with the SendKeys command, but again, only on a new instance. And DevTools doesn't persist to new tabs.

Browsing the Google Product Forums, there doesn't seem to be a built-in way to do this in Chrome. You'll have to use a keystroke solution or F12 as mentioned above.

I recommended it as a feature. I know I'm not the first either.