Debugging Protractor tests using Gulp tasks with WebStorm - debugging

Question

I run my Protractor tests using a gulp task and I pass all the parameters in the gulp task like:
gulp protractor-integration --useProxy=true --baseUrl=http://10.222.25.18:81 --apiUrl=10.124.22.213:8080 --suite=tests
I have tried to set up a configuration in WebStorm for Gulp and pass all the parameters there. When I hit run the correct tests are executed.
When I put a break point and hit debug the tests are executed and WebStorm does not stop at the break points.
Gulp Configuration in WebStorm for Debugging is not working. Sample Picture

Answer 1

Gulp run configuration is not supposed to be used for protractor tests debugging - it was designed to run/debug Gulp tasks.
To debug certain Node.js application, like Protractor tests, you need to make sure that debug arguments (--debug-brk/inspect-brk) are passed to Node process that starts the application. In your case, the application is spawned as a child process by Gulp. The IDE can only pass debug args to the main process (Gulp), that's why only Gulp tasks themselves will be debugged and not the child processes started by these tasks.
If you still prefer using Gulp to start your tests instead of using the dedicated Protractor run configuration, make sure that protractor process is started with --debug-brk/inspect-brk .
Do do this, you need changing node_modules/gulp-protractor/index.js accordingly. For example, modifying childProcess.fork call as follows will start Protractor with --inspect-brk=5860:
child = childProcess.fork(getProtractorCli(), args, {
stdio: 'inherit',
env: process.env,
execArgv: ['--inspect-brk=5860'] //added line
}).on('exit', function(code) {
...