Debugging with VSCode

[cschroeter]

With the latest release of Visual Studio Code - a new feature called Auto Attach was introduced. To debug your NestJS app enable Auto Attach and edit nodemon.json file to look like this

{
  "watch": ["src"],
  "ext": "ts",
  "ignore": ["src/**/*.spec.ts"],
  "exec": "node --inspect-brk -r ts-node/register src/main.ts"
}

Now just run yarn start:dev and happy hacking!

[mpicciolli]

To debug your JEST tests, the following launch config worked for me ( check your node --version, make sure it's 8.X):

{
    "name": "Debug Jest tests",
    "type": "node",
    "request": "launch",
    "program": "${workspaceRoot}\\node_modules\\jest\\bin\\jest.js",
    "args": [
      "--runInBand",
      "--no-cache"
    ],
    "runtimeArgs": [
      "--inspect-brk"
    ],
    "cwd": "${workspaceRoot}",
    "protocol": "inspector",
    "console": "integratedTerminal"
  }

[kamilmysliwiec]

I added nodemon-debug.json and npm run start:debug command based on your configuration. Thanks 👍

[yanshuf0]

This is a very important post, someone should contribute to the documentation (I don't mind writing it if that helps) to walk people through this.

Heads up, using gitbash (or any other multiplexer) as your integrated terminal will NOT trigger the Auto Attach debugging capabilities. From the above article:

"Please note that this feature does not (yet) work for terminal multiplexers like 'tmux' (where launched processes are not children of VS Code's integrated terminal)."

[mchelen]

This is a great feature, can someone please document how to use it? @yanshuf0 @kamilmysliwiec

[walter211]

dont know why stoped in seconds and showing these:

/usr/local/bin/npm run-script start:dev Debugger listening on ws://127.0.0.1:9229/91f16f11-51c8-40ed-a4fa-91bce55111f6 Debugger attached. Debugger listening on ws://127.0.0.1:9229/04e094c1-fdfe-4c9f-82b5-a3352a41e38d

[TristanMarion]

Hello, I try to debug my Nest applications in Docker containers, I can connect to the debug socket but my breakpoint does not work. The only way to get them working at the moment is to compile the files and then run the app using node and not ts-node. If someone has already achieved what I try to do, don't hesitate to ping me 😄

I can send my configuration for the node solution if someone needs it :)

[KBalint1991]

@walter211 I have the same issue, it seems that --inspect-brk is just not starting the app properly. It works fine with --inspect, but I want to use breakpoints.

The app which should be running on the 3000 port is not starting.

Could you solve it anyhow?

My output:

[nodemon] starting `ts-node --inspect-brk -r ts-node/register src/main.ts`
Debugger listening on ws://127.0.0.1:9229/3fd6a281-84ba-4c42-9702-a305cb7494c0

Node version: 9.8.0 Nodemon version: 1.17.3 VSCode version: 1.28.2

[kushwahashiv]

I added nodemon-debug.json and npm run start:debug command based on your configuration. Thanks 👍

this doesn't work for me. I tried https://github.com/nestjs/typescript-starter as well it do not work with that.

Please let me know if anything I'm missing here.

thanks.

[trainerbill]

I added 2 run scripts for debugging tests:

"test:debug": "node --inspect-brk node_modules/.bin/jest",
"test:e2e:debug": "node --inspect-brk node_modules/.bin/jest --runInBand --config ./test/jest-e2e.json"

@kamilmysliwiec can something similar be added to the typescript-starter?

[orlaqp]

Hi everyone I am using the new node nodemon.json and it looks like this:

{
  "watch": ["apps/api/src"],
  "ext": "ts",
  "ignore": ["apps/api/src/**/*.spec.ts", "apps/api/src/app/graphql.ts"],
  "exec": "ts-node -P apps/api/tsconfig.app.json -r tsconfig-paths/register apps/api/src/main.ts"
}

It does not have the original path because I am using a monorepo and move the application to a different folder.

Now in my package json I have the following line:

"api:start:debug": "nodemon --config ./apps/api/nodemon-debug.json",

When I run (with the VSCode Auto Attach feature enabled):

yarn api:start:debug

I get the following error:

import { NestFactory } from '@nestjs/core';
       ^

SyntaxError: Unexpected token {
    at new Script (vm.js:83:7)
    at createScript (vm.js:267:10)
    at Object.runInThisContext (vm.js:319:10)
    at Module._compile (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:685:28)
    at Module.m._compile (/Users/orlaqp/development/binaryways/courses/agency-x/node_modules/ts-node/src/index.ts:439:23)
    at Module._extensions..js (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:733:10)
    at Object.require.extensions.(anonymous function) [as .ts] (/Users/orlaqp/development/binaryways/courses/agency-x/node_modules/ts-node/src/index.ts:442:12)
    at Module.load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:620:32)
    at tryModuleLoad (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:560:12)
    at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:552:3)

Not sure if I provided all the relevant details but do you see here anything I am doing wrong?

Thanks!

[orlaqp]

I was able to fix my issue doing the following:

{
  "watch": ["apps/api/src"],
  "ext": "ts",
  "ignore": ["apps/api/src/**/*.spec.ts", "apps/api/src/app/graphql.ts"],
  "exec": "TS_NODE_PROJECT='./apps/api/tsconfig.app.json' node --inspect-brk -r tsconfig-paths/register -r ts-node/register apps/api/src/main.ts"
}

Basically, I had to add the TS_NODE_PROJECT env var and also register tsconfig-paths

I hope it can help somebody else ...

[Tyler-V]

Started a new project last week off of master and can confirm it is working as advertised in VSCode 1.30.1 using Node 8.9.3.

Don't forget to go to File -> Preferences -> Settings and search 'Auto Attach' it defaults to off.

Run npm run start:debug and set breakpoints in VSCode!

[fvilers]

Great tip! Any idea on how to disable the automatic step in in main.ts? It's annoying to hit F5 on each restart...

[rompetomp]

@fvilers You should be able to use --inspect instead of --inspect-brk

https://nodejs.org/en/docs/guides/debugging-getting-started/#command-line-options

[paulvanbladel]

@Tyler-V ON which OS was that? I'm running on windows but it doesn't work :(

[gmcelhanon]

I couldn't get this to work on Windows 10 (not sure if that's relevant), but I was getting an error at startup (using node start:debug) saying that it couldn't find "src/main.ts".

I changed the "exec" line in nodemon-debug.json from:

  "exec": "node --inspect-brk -r ts-node/register -r tsconfig-paths/register src/main.ts"

... to ...

  "exec": "node --inspect-brk -r ts-node/register -r tsconfig-paths/register ./src/main.ts"

(Added "./" as a prefix on the "src/main.ts" path.)

Now, debugging is working.

[paulvanbladel]

@gmcelhanon Thanks for sharing. Unfortunately, not working on my side. I even don't get your error (just with a fresh nestjs project generated from the CLI. Did you do anything special to get that error msg (additional logging or so?)

When I run npm run start:debug, the output is:

[nodemon] 1.18.9
[nodemon] to restart at any time, enter `rs`
[nodemon] watching: F:\nest-debug\server\src/**/*
[nodemon] starting `node --inspect-brk -r ts-node/register -r tsconfig-paths/register ./src/main.ts`
Debugger listening on ws://127.0.0.1:9229/e466138c-f097-48b1-a322-216d195d142e
For help see https://nodejs.org/en/docs/inspector

I'm running node v8.12.0 vscode v1.30.2

[atul221282]

@paulvanbladel - I am also experiencing the same issue

But if you change your line in nodemon-debug.json file to

"exec": "node --inspect -r ts-node/register -r tsconfig-paths/register ./src/main.ts"

App runs but no debugging work

[themizzi]

Even after waiting a long time, with a fresh project on macOS using either node 10.15.3 or node 12.2.0, running npm run start:debug results in only the following output and no application running. I checked htop and the node process this spawns is running at 100% cpu.

[nodemon] 1.19.0
[nodemon] to restart at any time, enter `rs`
[nodemon] watching: /Volumes/Mizzi/Casechek/test-nest/src/**/*
[nodemon] starting `node --inspect-brk -r ts-node/register -r tsconfig-paths/register src/main.ts`
Debugger listening on ws://127.0.0.1:9229/40dcd8a6-4ccf-4d80-ba2b-77f50b8387f3
For help, see: https://nodejs.org/en/docs/inspector

Replacing inspect-brk with inspect in nodemon-debug.json:

{
  "watch": ["src"],
  "ext": "ts",
  "ignore": ["src/**/*.spec.ts"],
  "exec": "node --inspect -r ts-node/register -r tsconfig-paths/register src/main.ts"
}

Solved the problem for me and then I was able to hit breakpoints (in PhpStorm).

[hgezim]

Any luck @TristanMarion ?

[davingreen]

I seem to also be having an issue with debugging in VS code...

Windows 10 VS Code Version: 1.35.1 Node: 10.16 Auto Attach: On

nodemon.js (for reference)

{
  "watch": ["src"],
  "ext": "ts",
  "ignore": ["src/**/*.spec.ts"],
  "exec": "ts-node -r tsconfig-paths/register src/main.ts"
}

nodemon-debug.js

{
  "watch": ["src"],
  "ext": "ts",
  "ignore": ["src/**/*.spec.ts"],
  "exec": "node --inspect-brk -r ts-node/register -r tsconfig-paths/register src/main.ts"
}

Steps to reproduce:

1. npm run start:debug

   [nodemon] 1.19.0
   [nodemon] to restart at any time, enter `rs`
   [nodemon] watching: C:\{...}\src/**/*
   [nodemon] starting `node --inspect-brk -r ts-node/register -r tsconfig-paths/register src/main.ts`
   Debugger listening on ws://127.0.0.1:9229/aa76e8a1-94ac-43ec-8d94-285f4cef8d7e
   For help, see: https://nodejs.org/en/docs/inspector
   Debugger attached.

2. Breakpoint in main.ts is hit and stops, I continue...

   [Nest] 14964   - 06/26/2019, 6:47 PM   [NestFactory] Starting Nest application...
   [Nest] 14964   - 06/26/2019, 6:47 PM   [InstanceLoader] ConfigModule dependencies initialized +425ms
   [Nest] 14964   - 06/26/2019, 6:47 PM   [InstanceLoader] TypeOrmModule dependencies initialized +3ms
   [Nest] 14964   - 06/26/2019, 6:47 PM   [InstanceLoader] AppModule dependencies initialized +178ms
   [Nest] 14964   - 06/26/2019, 6:47 PM   [InstanceLoader] CqrsModule dependencies initialized +2ms
   [Nest] 14964   - 06/26/2019, 6:47 PM   [InstanceLoader] TypeOrmCoreModule dependencies initialized +101ms
   [Nest] 14964   - 06/26/2019, 6:47 PM   [InstanceLoader] TypeOrmModule dependencies initialized +6ms
   [Nest] 14964   - 06/26/2019, 6:47 PM   [InstanceLoader] DocumentModule dependencies initialized +17ms
   [Nest] 14964   - 06/26/2019, 6:47 PM   [RoutesResolver] AppController {/api/v1/}: +40ms
   [Nest] 14964   - 06/26/2019, 6:47 PM   [RouterExplorer] Mapped {/, GET} route +5ms
   ...(other routes)...
   [Nest] 14964   - 06/26/2019, 6:47 PM   [NestApplication] Nest application successfully started +33ms

3. Request: GET http://localhost:3000/api/v1/
4. Breakpoints ignored (not working or stopping on breakpoints)

Any help is appreciated... I've also tried several combinations of manually configuring the debug launch.js, but nothing has worked.

[DimaMorgun]

@davingreen I've resolved this issue right now. It works for me.

The simpliest way to start debugger. Add to launch.json default node attach configuration { "type": "node", "request": "attach", "name": "Attach", "port": 9229 }

After this I've started application using default command npm run start:debug. Then nodemon started hosting debug environment on 'ws://127.0.0.1:9229/afc915d8-6e9a-433f-92ac-7543589716f5'

And then I've start my debugger in VSCode.

This process was attached to nodemon and breakpoints already works.

After this I can visit my routes, like localhost:3000/amazingApi/v99/doAll.

[xieyihao]

Started a new project last week off of master and can confirm it is working as advertised in VSCode 1.30.1 using Node 8.9.3.

Don't forget to go to File -> Preferences -> Settings and search 'Auto Attach' it defaults to off.

Run npm run start:debug and set breakpoints in VSCode!

thx! It work for me!

[Hwan-seok]

Alternatively,

Use node --inspect -r ./dist/main.js when using Wepack Hot Module Replacement

[raedwa01]

I am still having trouble. I have the autoattach turned on for VSCode. I run the npm run start:debug which calls "NODE_ENV=development nest start --debug --watch"

The problem is, I get some popup errors as seen in my attached image and even though VSCode says it is autoattached, none of my breakpoints are loaded.

[kamilmysliwiec]

@raedwa01 try updating @nestjs/cli to the latest version 7.1.0 and using --debug-brk flag instead

[raedwa01]

--debug-brk is listed an an unknown option. Upgrading to 7.1.1 didn't seem to do anything to help either.

[dsbert]

I am seeing the same errors as @raedwa01 Not sure if this is because of something that changed in vscode.

[raul-j]

--debug-brk is listed an an unknown option. Upgrading to 7.1.1 didn't seem to do anything to help either.

It seems not fixed yet in version 8