Running NodeJS project in Visual Studio Code with yarn

Question

I have a NodeJS project which I can start from command line with yarn start command. My package.json looks similar to this:

{   "name": "projectname",   "version": "0.0.1",   "description": "",   "author": "My Name",   "license": "",   "scripts": {     "start": "yarn dev",     "dev": "yarn stop && pm2 start pm2-dev.yaml && webpack-dev-server --progress",     "prod": "yarn stop && yarn build && pm2 start pm2-prod.yaml",     "build": "rimraf dist lib && babel src -d lib --ignore test.js && cross-env NODE_ENV=production webpack -p --progress",     "stop": "rimraf logs/* && pm2 delete all || true"   },   "dependencies": {     "body-parser": "~1.16.0",     "ejs": "2.5.5",     "express": "^4.14.1",     "pg": "^6.1.2",     "react": "^15.4.2",     "redux": "^3.6.0",   },   "devDependencies": {     "babel-cli": "^6.22.2",     "cross-env": "^3.1.4",     "eslint": "^3.13.0",     "pm2": "^2.3.0",     "redux-mock-store": "^1.2.2",     "rimraf": "^2.5.4",     "webpack": "^2.2.1",     "webpack-dev-server": "^2.2.1"   } } 

I am trying to start this project in debugging mode with Visual Studio Code but with almost no luck. I have defined my launch configuration in VS Code launch.json file like this:

{   // Use IntelliSense to learn about possible Node.js debug attributes.   // Hover to view descriptions of existing attributes.   // For more information, visit: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=830387   "version": "0.2.0",   "configurations": [     {       "type": "node",       "request": "launch",       "name": "yarn",       "runtimeExecutable": "yarn",       "runtimeArgs": [         "start"       ],       "port": 5858,       "cwd": "${workspaceRoot}",       "timeout": 10000     }   ] } 

The problem with this configuration is that it usually times-out because webpack-dev-server build is longer than 10 seconds. I can increase the timeout in my configuration, but I have noticed that VS Code results with a message Cannot connect to runtime process (timeout after 30000 ms). eventually, so I assume that this is not a good solution. Also, my breakpoints are ignored with this kind of config which tells me that I am definitely doing something wrong here.

This is the first time I am trying out Visual Studio Code and I usually don't use NodeJS, but I got this project with all these scripts in package.json already defined so I'm trying to adopt to it and therefore all the confusion about how to run it properly.

Can Visual Studio Code run a project like this with full debugging functionality at all, and if so, how should I configure my launch script?

Answer 1

I ended up having the following configuration in launch.json:

{     "type": "node",     "request": "launch",     "name": "Launch via Yarn",     "runtimeExecutable": "yarn",     "cwd": "${workspaceFolder}",     "runtimeArgs": ["start:debug"],     "port": 5858 } 

And the following entry in the scripts property inside package.json:

"start:debug": "node --inspect-brk=5858 ./server/index.js", 

You could include a timeout key (which defaults to 10000) and increase its value if have any prestart:debug script in your package.json which could lead to delay the launch of the actual node app.