diff --git a/features/bootstrap/debug.php b/features/bootstrap/debug.php
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..24ac40e5ad
--- /dev/null
+++ b/features/bootstrap/debug.php
@@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
+<?php
+
+// Debug helpers when running in behat.
+
+if ( ! function_exists( '_error_log' ) ) {
+	// Put error messages to PHP's 'error_log' when running shelled out with captured STDERR.
+	function _error_log( $msg ) {
+		error_log( sprintf( "[%s] %s\n", date( 'r' ), $msg ), 3, ini_get( 'error_log' ) );
+	}
+}
+
+if ( ! function_exists( '_var_dump' ) ) {
+	// Wrapper around PHP's var_dump to return a string rather than interfere with captured STDOUT.
+	// Fixes up __FILE__:__LINE__: prefix for PHP >= 7.
+	function _var_dump( $var ) {
+		$ret = '';
+		if ( $php_ver_7 = version_compare( PHP_VERSION, '7', '>=' ) ) {
+			$bt = debug_backtrace( 0, 1 );
+			$file_line = isset( $bt[0] ) ? "{$bt[0]['file']}:{$bt[0]['line']}:\n" : '';
+		}
+		for ( $i = 0, $cnt = func_num_args(); $i < $cnt; $i++ ) {
+			ob_start();
+			var_dump( func_get_arg( $i ) );
+			$v = ob_get_clean();
+			$ret .= $php_ver_7 ? preg_replace( '/^.*?:\n/', $file_line, $v ) : $v;
+		}
+		return $ret;
+	}
+}