commented xdebug.ini showing minimal config to get debugging, profiling, and tracing working, along with some instructions

xdebug minimal config

zend_extension=/path/to/xdebug.so
; enable starting debug with XDEBUG_SESSION_START=1
xdebug.remote_enable=1
; enable starting profiler with XDEBUG_PROFILE=1
xdebug.profiler_enable_trigger=1
; good idea to do this explicitly b/c it's hard to tell where it went otherwise
xdebug.profiler_output_dir=/tmp/
; To generate TRACES of script execution; see http://www.xdebug.org/docs/execution_trace
; this will happen ALWAYS (or set to 0 and use xdebug_start_trace; sadly no XDEBUG_XXX method to enable this via URL)
xdebug.auto_trace=0
; good idea to do this explicitly b/c it's hard to tell where it went otherwise
xdebug.trace_output_dir=/tmp/
xdebug.trace_format=0