VSC Debugger throwing SyntaxError: Cannot use import statement outside a module

Question

Prior to some recent update of Visual Studio Code I was able to debug my Node.js Apps written in TypeScript with this launch.json configuration

{
    // Use IntelliSense to learn about possible attributes.
    // Hover to view descriptions of existing attributes.
    // For more information, visit: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=830387
    "version": "0.2.0",
    "configurations": [
        {
            "type": "node",
            "request": "launch",
            "name": "Debug API",
            "protocol": "inspector",
            "program": "${workspaceFolder}/apps/api/src/main.ts",
            "outFiles": ["${workspaceFolder}/dist/apps/api/main.js"],
            "sourceMaps": true
        }
    ]
}

But now I'm getting this error

import * as express from 'express';
^^^^^^

SyntaxError: Cannot use import statement outside a module
    at wrapSafe (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1054:16)
    at Module._compile (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1102:27)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1158:10)
    at Module.load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:986:32)
    at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:879:14)
    at Function.executeUserEntryPoint [as runMain] (internal/modules/run_main.js:71:12)
    at internal/main/run_main_module.js:17:47
Process exited with code 1

Any idea of how can I fix this? Or at least make it work while VSC Team provides an answer on their GitHub https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/102834

Answer 1

You can do the following:

1. Add (if not already exist) a build step in the package.json , something like this;

    "ci-build": "npx tsc",

2. I have in the tsconfig.json the following options;

    "compilerOptions": { "outDir": "dist", "rootDir": "src", "module": "commonjs" "sourceMap": true, "lib": ["esnext", "dom"], "strict": true, "esModuleInterop": true, "target": "es2017" }

   Note : Make sure to set the sourceMap to true

3. My launch.json looks like this;

    { "type": "node", "request": "launch", "name": "Build Project", "program": "${workspaceFolder}/src/index.ts", "preLaunchTask": "npm: ci-build", "sourceMaps": true, "smartStep": true, "internalConsoleOptions": "openOnSessionStart", "outFiles": ["${workspaceFolder}/dist/**/*.js"] }

For further reading, see my blog post on the topic

Answer 2

According to a comment on this github issue , VSC Team has provided a fix for version 1.48 of Visual Studio Code:

{
    "type": "node",
    "request": "launch",
    "name": "Debug launcher",
    "protocol": "inspector",
    "program": "${workspaceFolder}/apps/launcher/src/main.ts",
    "outFiles": ["${workspaceFolder}/dist/**/*.js"],
    "sourceMaps": true
}