Mocha breakpoints using Visual Studio Code

node.js visual-studio-code mocha tdd
André Vermeulen picture André Vermeulen · May 4, 2015 · Viewed 40.2k times · Source

Is it possible to add breakpoints to ones Mocha tests using Visual Studio Code?

Normally when debugging code one need to configure the launch.json, setting the program attribute to the javascript file to execute. I am not sure how to do this for Mocha though.

Answer

Frank Nocke picture Frank Nocke · Oct 27, 2017

Did you know, that you just go into your launch config, put your cursor after or between your other configs and press ctrl-space to get a current, valid mocha config auto-generated?

Which works perfectly fine for me. Including stopping at breakpoints. ( I also had a prior, now outdated one, that did no longer for various setting-related reasons. )

enter image description here

As of VSCode 1.21.1 (March 2018) this yields:

{
  "version": "0.2.0",
  "configurations": [
    {
      "name": "Mocha (Test single file)",
      "type": "node",
      "request": "launch",
      "runtimeArgs": [
        "${workspaceRoot}/node_modules/.bin/mocha",
        "--inspect-brk",
        "${relativeFile}",
      ],
      "console": "integratedTerminal",
      "internalConsoleOptions": "neverOpen",
      "port": 9229
    }
}

On a side-note: debug-brk is deprectated (for anyone with Node >= Version 8 at least).

Related questions

Run JavaScript in Visual Studio Code

Is there a way to execute JavaScript and display the results using Visual Studio Code? For example, a script file containing: console.log('hello world'); I assume that Node.js would be needed but can't work out how to do …

Read More
How do I add environment variables to launch.json in VSCode

Working with the new VSCode editor on a node.js project. I am attempting to configure my "Launch" profile for debugging by editing the launch.json file. I need to setup a connectionstring as an environment variable. According to the …

Read More
"Attribute 'program' does not exist" for basic node.js project

I created simple node.js application (source code from here https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/visual-studio-code-and-azure-app-service-a-perfect-fit/) var http = require('http'); http.createServer(function (req, res) { console.log('Got request for ' + req.url); res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'text/html'}); res.…

Read More