DEBUG-NODEJS-COMMANDLINE-APPS.md

How to debug other Node.js command line applications like a Grunt task

ironNode needs a JavaScript file as entry point for a debug session. So first of all you have to locate the global or local installation of the commandline app you want to use.

Here we have a handy collection of scripts. You can simply copy and paste them into the scripts section of your package.json. Feel free to 🎉 contribute and add your scripts here!

debug script calls

  ...
  "scripts": {
    ...
    "debug-mocha": "iron-node node_modules/mocha/bin/_mocha",
    "debug-grunt": "iron-node node_modules/grunt-cli/bin/grunt build",
    "debug-gulp": "iron-node node_modules/gulp/bin/gulp.js",
    ...
  },
  ...

Now it is easy to start a debug session using npm run ....

usage

  $ cd your-project-path;
  $ npm run debug-mocha;

⚠️ Heads Up

Some command line apps may use native modules. Please read How to use native modules?.