diff --git a/constants.php b/constants.php
index 9d1762c6524c96b1fdd3e2f3d4499e3e312b2376..925ef6984f16d89a38e816a8e9e46c8389e472d1 100644
--- a/constants.php
+++ b/constants.php
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
 # variables
 
 //use this to know which version we published
-$versionString = '2.6.3';
+$versionString = '2.7.0';
 $rootDirNameToUseString = 'work';
 
 $isDebug = false; //logs debug to STDOUT
@@ -63,6 +63,8 @@ $regexMathAllFilesAttribute = '*';
 $responseNewLineString = '\r\n'; //to match interface
 $runnerNewLineString = "\\r\\n"; //starting with runner version 2.4
 
+$runnerDebugLogNewLineString = "\\n";
+
 
 # known error codes
 $status_code_Ok = 0;
@@ -151,6 +153,7 @@ $s_timeForUserProgram = 'timeForUserProgram';
 $s_output_without_header_part = 'stripedOutput';
 $s_characterLimitExceeded = 'characterLimitExceeded';
 $s_characterLimitUsed = 'characterLimitUsed';
+$s_headerKeyCharacterRunnerDebugLog = 'runnerDebugLog';
 
 $s_header_part_separator = "---\\r\\n";
 
diff --git a/protocolHeaderPartParser.php b/protocolHeaderPartParser.php
index 1ff7dc37429d41aa61863da6e7dc3b995888ffa8..078893317062088de6b0aca53f81c173a80faed3 100644
--- a/protocolHeaderPartParser.php
+++ b/protocolHeaderPartParser.php
@@ -11,6 +11,9 @@ function parseHeaderPart($output)
     global $s_output_without_header_part;
     global $s_characterLimitExceeded;
     global $runnerNewLineString;
+    global $s_headerKeyCharacterRunnerDebugLog;
+
+    global $s_timings_string_separator;
 
 
     //if we have no header tuples we might have only so ---\n
@@ -24,6 +27,7 @@ function parseHeaderPart($output)
     $timeForCompiling = NULL;
     $timeForUserProgram = NULL;
     $characterLimitExceeded = FALSE;
+    $runnerDebugLogLines = [];
 
 
     $headerPartLines = explode($runnerNewLineString, $headerPartText);
@@ -67,7 +71,25 @@ function parseHeaderPart($output)
 
             $characterLimitExceeded = strtolower($val) === 'true';
 
+        } else if (strpos($line, $s_headerKeyCharacterRunnerDebugLog) === 0) {
+
+            $val = substr($line,   strlen($s_headerKeyCharacterRunnerDebugLog)+1);
+            if ($val === null) continue;
+
+
+            if (!empty($val)) {
+                $runnerDebugLogLines = explode($s_timings_string_separator, $val);
+                addToDebugTimings("--start runner debug lines");
+                #aadd the runner debug lines to the timings log
+                foreach ($runnerDebugLogLines as $runnerLogLine) {
+                    addToDebugTimings($runnerLogLine);
+                }
+                addToDebugTimings("--finish runner debug lines");
+            }
+
         }
+
+
     }