How to configure Mocha in VSCode for debugging - mocha.js

Question

I have a simple LinkedList implementation in Node. I want to test it using Mocha -- simply exercise different append/delete operations. And most importantly, I want to be able to stepthrough/debug my linkedlist as called from the mocha tests.
This is my launch.json:
{
"version": "0.1.0",
"configurations": [
{
"type": "node",
"request": "launch",
"protocol": "inspector",
"name": "Mocha All",
"windows":{
"runtimeExecutable": "c:\\Users\\alern\\AppData\\Roaming\\npm\\_mocha.cmd"
},
"args": [
"--colors",
"${workspaceFolder}\\test\\test.js"
],
"console": "integratedTerminal",
"internalConsoleOptions": "neverOpen"
}
]
}
when I press Run on my "Mocha All" configuration in VSCode,
global installation of mocha.cmd starts running, I see the following in the terminal:
cd 'd:\Projects\Algorithms\LinkedList'; & 'c:\Users\alern\AppData\Roaming\npm\_mocha.cmd' '--inspect-brk=30840' '--colors' 'D:\Projects\Algorithms\LinkedList\test\test.js'
(node:21524) ExperimentalWarning: The ESM module loader is experimental.
The above makes sense.
And then I see:
all of my tests simply rip through --- although I have setup some breakpoints in the Mocha scripts, they get ignored. So thats useless.
once all the tests are done (some successful, some not), at the end I get a popup that says:
"Cannot connect to runtime process, timeout after 10000ms - reason: Cannot connect to target: connect ECONNREFUSED 127.0.0.1:30840" This error feels like my process is done running and gone away, and VSCode or debugger are trying to connect to it?
In any case, what do I tweak to have my breakpoints stop execution? Thank you

Answer 1

The first thing I might try is to change the type to "pwa-node". I think mocha or VSCode recently made some changes that make that mandatory. You might also not want to set the runtime executable, but rather the "program". Generally the runtimeExecutable will be node, and if it's on your path VSCode should be able to find it automatically.
If all else fails I'd also try looking at the default configuration that ships with VSCode and see if that gives you any clues. That can be accessed by adding a new configuration through the "Add Configuration..." button. https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/nodejs/nodejs-debugging#_launch-configurations-for-common-scenarios