Should nodemon pass --inspect (et al) to node automatically?

[eilgin]

• nodemon -v: 1.15.1
• node -v: 8.9.4
• Operating system/terminal environment: MacOS
• Command you ran: nodemon --inspect

Expected behaviour

Expect to run node --inspect index.js. It should work without specifying the default JS file (nodemon should look for the file defined in "main").

Actual behaviour

It runs node index.js --inspect which doesn't start the debugger. It works only if i specify the JS file with nodemon --inspect index.js.

Steps to reproduce

Just run nodemon --inspect

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[remy]

Question: how does nodemon know that --inspect should go to the exec and not your script?

[eilgin]

I only found this in the README (which i believe is also the only doc):

If no script is given, nodemon will test for a package.json file and if found, will run the file associated with the main property

Moreover it says later that the "inspect flag [is passed] to node" so i'm confused by your question since the default behavior seems to use the "main" value from package.json (if found) and --inspect is a flag passed to the executed node process therefore nodemon --inspect should be interpreted as nodemon --inspect <file referenced by require('./package.json').main>?

Anyway i'm using the explicit version now.

[remy]

The main value is used, but the problem is quite subtle. Firstly, the exec may not be node, other developers might be using a different tools, so I can't assume to pass --inspect to the exec.

Equally, I'd have to (to my knowledge) manually maintain a list of node arguments and filter for them and pass them across if present. Other tools (and nodemon) have tried this in the past, but when new flags are added to node, the tool doesn't know about them and thus doesn't pass them (i.e. --inspect is relatively new, and wasn't in previous versions).

If there was a way to iterate and maintain the list of supported node args, then there might be a dynamic solution. Though, I'm not totally against hard coding some common flags into nodemon, like --inspect, --trace-warnings, etc - but I'd like to get some shared input on which would be worth supporting.

[remy]

Thinking aloud (as it were), maybe, if there's no script arguments to nodemon, it should pass everything (in order) to the exec process.

This would solve the issue of edge cases like if something like --zero-fill-buffers isn't hardcoded. And if you want to stop slurping args, you can use the double-dash method.

ie, this would be possible:

nodemon --inspect -- --inspect
# runs:
> node --inspect index.js --inspect

Thoughts?

[eilgin]

I like the idea of the --. It feels in accordance to the unix tools 👍

[remy]

@eilgin nodemon has always supported the -- flag, to avoid slurping up args that nodemon used and your scripts used - just making sure it works for the arg-less invocation too.

[eilgin]

I didn't know that, i've started using nodemon only 2 days ago 😄

[valoricDe]

In version 1.19.2 the nodemon --inspect -- --inspect does not work.
So when I run nodemon --inspect --delay 200ms -- --inspect it seems to pick my start script "start": "node -r esm -r dotenv/config ./bin/www", and translate it to node -r esm -r dotenv/config ./bin/www --inspect --inspect. Therefore I wonder why this ticket is closed. Is it a regression or has there been issues with this approach?