JavaScript: How to use WebStorm debugger with ava

Question

This is not question, just answer:

1. Create run/debug configuration, type Node.js
2. Select your node interpreter

3. As node parameter insert your ava bin and parameter --verbose

   For me it's: ./node_modules/.bin/ava --verbose

4. Select your working directory
5. Done, now you can debug

The magic is in --verbose , I have no idea why it works that way, but it does.

Answer 1

I have no idea why/how it works for you - configuration is definitely wrong. With your configuration, --inspect-brk is passed to ava, not to Node.js, and thus treated as your application argument. You should have specified node_modules/.bin/ava as JavaScript file: in your Run configuration instead of specifying it as a Node parameter, to make sure that Node debug arguments are passed before the application main file. --verbose can be passed as application parameter.

See also https://github.com/avajs/ava/blob/master/docs/recipes/debugging-with-webstorm.md

Answer 2

Ava is a lightweight test runner for javascript, because there is not a clear answer on how to run ava tests via webstorm and I've been searching for this a while now, I'm sharing my ava WebStorm config.

Create a new node test runner with following configuration:

Node interpreter : whatever version of node that you are using that is compatible with your ava version

Working directory : ~/Documents/Work/projectRootDir

Javascript file : node_modules/ava/cli.js

Application parameters : -v outdir/testFile eg /dist/test/controllers/test.js

There you go, now you can run and debug AVA with the best javascript IDE instead of console logging! I'm quite sure that vscode config will be quite similar