Use `npm start` with --inspect flag?

Question

Is there a way for me to run npm start and pass in the --inspect flag?

npm --inspect start doesn't work. Neither does npm start -- --inspect

Answer 1

npm supports a node-options config value which is passed through using the NODE_OPTIONS environment variable. This environment variable is interpreted by NodeJS 8+. So if your package.json looks something like:

{
  ...
  "scripts": {
    "dev": "node src/index.js"
  },
  ...
}

then you can use

npm --node-options --inspect run dev