diff --git a/Cargo.lock b/Cargo.lock
index 9380cad..dc98303 100644
--- a/Cargo.lock
+++ b/Cargo.lock
@@ -48,6 +48,7 @@ dependencies = [
  "glob",
  "hostname",
  "lazy_static",
+ "serde",
  "serde_json",
  "structopt",
 ]
@@ -166,6 +167,20 @@ name = "serde"
 version = "1.0.106"
 source = "registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index"
 checksum = "36df6ac6412072f67cf767ebbde4133a5b2e88e76dc6187fa7104cd16f783399"
+dependencies = [
+ "serde_derive",
+]
+
+[[package]]
+name = "serde_derive"
+version = "1.0.106"
+source = "registry+https://github.com/rust-lang/crates.io-index"
+checksum = "9e549e3abf4fb8621bd1609f11dfc9f5e50320802273b12f3811a67e6716ea6c"
+dependencies = [
+ "proc-macro2",
+ "quote",
+ "syn",
+]
 
 [[package]]
 name = "serde_json"
diff --git a/Cargo.toml b/Cargo.toml
index 9eb2c3b..38dffbb 100644
--- a/Cargo.toml
+++ b/Cargo.toml
@@ -14,3 +14,5 @@ hostname = "0.3"
 # Translations
 serde_json = "1.0"
 structopt = "0.3"
+# Debug Context for translations
+serde = { version = "1.0", features = ["derive"] }
diff --git a/src/log.rs b/src/log.rs
index a0646da..c9f7e77 100644
--- a/src/log.rs
+++ b/src/log.rs
@@ -13,11 +13,11 @@ lazy_static! {
 
 /// Lang configures how to deal with translations. It has three possible values:
 /// None: translations return their own key name
-/// Replace: wtf to do with this?
 /// Some(code): where code is the language code for the JSON translation file
+/// JsonContext: debug output for Context as JSON
 pub enum Lang {
     None,
-    Replace,
+    JsonContext,
     Some(String)
 }
 
@@ -25,9 +25,10 @@ impl Lang {
     fn from_env() -> Lang {
         let lang =
             env::var("LANG").expect("$LANG not set in environment. Your machine is misconfigured!");
+        // TODO: do lowercase matching
         match lang.as_str() {
             "NONE" => Lang::None,
-            "REPLACE" => Lang::Replace,
+            "JSON" => Lang::JsonContext,
             _ => Lang::Some(lang[0..2].to_string())
         }
     }
@@ -92,22 +93,27 @@ fn load_translations() -> HashMap<String, String> {
 
 fn trans(key: &str) -> String {
     match &*LANG {
-        Lang::Some(lang) => match TRANSLATIONS.get(key) {
-            Some(t) => t.to_string(),
-            None => {
-                panic!("Unknown translation string in lang {}: {}", lang, key);
+        Lang::Some(lang) => {
+            if let Some(t) = TRANSLATIONS.get(key) {
+                t.to_string()
+            } else {
+                panic!("Missing translation for {} in lang {}", key, lang)
             }
         },
-        Lang::None => {
-            // Return the requested key itself (for output tests)
-            key.to_string()
-        },
-        Lang::Replace => {
-            unimplemented!("Don't know what to do with this yet but we need a way to test variable substitution");
-        }
+        Lang::JsonContext => String::new(),
+        Lang::None => key.to_string(),
     }
 }
 
+fn trans_context(key: &str, context: &Context) -> String {
+    match &*LANG {
+        Lang::JsonContext => {
+            // Serialize the context to JSON for debugging
+            serde_json::to_string(context).expect("Failed to serialize to JSON")
+        },
+        _ => expand(&trans(key), context)
+    }
+}
 
 struct LogLevel {
     info: bool,
@@ -158,28 +164,24 @@ fn expand(msg: &str, vars: &Context) -> String {
 
 pub fn info(msg: &str, vars: &Context) {
     if LOGLEVEL.info {
-        let t_msg = expand(&trans(msg), vars);
-        println!("[git-build] {}", t_msg);
+        println!("[git-build] {}", trans_context(msg, vars));
     }
 }
 
 pub fn error(msg: &str, vars: &Context) {
     if LOGLEVEL.error {
-        let t_msg = expand(&trans(msg), vars);
-        eprintln!("{}{}", trans("error"), t_msg);
+        eprintln!("{}{}", trans("error"), trans_context(msg, vars));
     }
 }
 
 pub fn warn(msg: &str, vars: &Context) {
     if LOGLEVEL.error {
-        let t_msg = expand(&trans(msg), vars);
-        eprintln!("{}{}", trans("warning"), t_msg);
+        eprintln!("{}{}", trans("warning"), trans_context(msg, vars));
     }
 }
 
 pub fn debug(msg: &str, vars: &Context) {
     if LOGLEVEL.debug {
-        let t_msg = expand(&trans(msg), vars);
-        println!("{}{}", trans("debug"), t_msg);
+        println!("{}{}", trans("debug"), trans_context(msg, vars));
     }
 }
diff --git a/src/main.rs b/src/main.rs
index 8378f6e..e131892 100644
--- a/src/main.rs
+++ b/src/main.rs
@@ -1,4 +1,3 @@
-use std::collections::HashMap;
 use std::env::{set_current_dir as cd, set_var};
 use structopt::StructOpt;
 // For UNIX extended metadata