A source lookup participant participates in source lookup by searching an ordered list of source containers for source elements corresponding to a debug artifact. For example, a participant may be asked to find source corresponding to a stack frame or breakpoint. An implementation of a source lookup participant is debug model specific, since it must convert the debug model artifact (stack frame, breakpoint, etc.), into a source name that can be recognized by a source container (ISourceContainer), to search for source elements. Source containers are generally debug model independent, whereas source lookup participants are debug model specific.

Clients may implement this interface. An abstract implementation is provided by AbstractSourceLookupParticipant, which clients should subclass.