Consider using flagged-respawn

[ScottFreeCode]

From bin/mocha:

/**
 * This tiny wrapper file checks for known node flags and appends them
 * when found, before invoking the "real" _mocha(1) executable.
 */

It appears likely that we could merge bin/_mocha into this file (and probably simplify the code currently in bin/mocha) using https://www.npmjs.com/package/flagged-respawn

May need to consider whether removing the direct _mocha executable would be a breaking change.

[boneskull]

May need to consider whether removing the direct _mocha executable would be a breaking change.

Fully removing it would be a breaking change--tools like Istanbul depend on it--but if it was just an alias, it might not necessitate a major:

// _mocha
require('./mocha');

Needs more investigation.

[ScottFreeCode]

As a potential alternative, I hear you can now npx -n --use_strict mocha, which starts to sound not too bad compared to node_modules/.bin/mocha --use_strict or even mocha --use_strict -- it's far better than node --use_strict node_modules/mocha/bin/mocha at least. Plus if we relied on that instead of Mocha respawning itself, we wouldn't have to update as Node flags are added. But there's old-Node compatibility to consider: zkat/npx#30 And, perhaps most critically, I don't think you could put Node flags (of which at least --use_strict is useful... perhaps so useful there's some other config method that could activate it?...) into mocha.opts that way.

[juergba]

Since v6.2.0 we are aiming to avoid child-processes and do respawn only when Node flags are used or the esm module is required.

Node flags are detected by process.allowedNodeEnvironmentFlags or its polyfil node-environment-flags.