Debug Node application inside docker using vs code

Álvaro Reis

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Álvaro Reis

August 4, 2020

Motivation

No more console.log everywhere on the project and then remove then to commit code! Also debugging we are able to get much more info about what is happening on an specific execution time In the end of the day, we may investigate better and solve problems faster

Follow through the code

git clone git@github.com:reisneto/debug-node-docker-vscode.git
github repository

Configure VS Code

inside your project create the folder .vscode
mkdir .vscode
and inside .vscode create launch.json launch.json
this file will configure how vscode will handle debugging

launch.json

In order to run the debugger with a docker container, paste the code below inside your launch.json

{
  "version": "0.2.0",
  "configurations": [
    {
      "type": "node",
      "request": "attach",
      "name": "d: Attach to Node",
      "remoteRoot": "/your/docker/workdir/app",
      "localRoot": "${workspaceFolder}/app"
    }
  ]
}

remoteRoot is your work directory inside docker and localRoot your local work directory. Use ${workspaceFolder} to get the absolute path of your project

settings.json

Don't ask me why, but when the config below is true our breakpoints don't work! so make sure it false. You can create a settings.json file inside .vscode folder or change it on your vs code settings.

{
  "debug.javascript.usePreview": false
}

Don't use version vs code 1.47!

The whole idea of this post is this: I spent about 2 hours to figure out my vs code version was preventing me to use debugger. Breakpoints were not working because of it, even when I put debug.javascript.usePreview to false!

Had to downgrade to version 1.46 to make it work.

Add inspect

at package.json add --inspect to your running tool

"scripts": {
  "dev": "ts-node-dev --inspect=0.0.0.0 -- server.ts"
},

or

"scripts": {
  "dev": "nodemon --inspect=0.0.0.0 server.js"
},

--inspect=0.0.0.0 makes it possible to listen inside docker container

That's it

I suggest to take a look into the code at the repository, any questions you can reach me out at reisneto.alvaro@gmail.com

special thanks to this post which helped me to styling my markdown -> html posts

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