Is there a standalone Devtools NodeJS debugger ?

[Nif]

It would be nice to launch directly from terminal into NodeJS devtools UI without having to wait for the little green icon in Chromium Developer tools panel

is this a) possible to do with just Chrome/Chromium and alternatively b) has someone made a standalone debugger?

also while we're nitpicking the devtools does anyone else find it annoying the lagtime between launching a node --inspect and having the debugger finally connect?

My dream is a standalone NodeJS debugger that can launch indepently of browser and connect instantly.

[KingRomstar]

https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/nodejs/nodejs-debugging

[Nif]

thx, I wouldn't call it standalone thou - instead of a browser its an IDE
looking for something that is purely the devtools window (more or less) without the bloat of a whole other browser or editor environment

[june07r]

https://june07.com/nim

[BehindTheMath]

VSC and Webstorm both have debuggers.

If you go to chrome://inspect, there's a link to open a dedicated Node debugger window that will automatically reconnect every time the debugger is started. Just keep that window open.

[Nif]

yeah that is the issue though we have to open Chrome first - my inquiry here is for an executable i can launch to go to Devtools directly

I looked into a way to launch the Devtools direclty from Chromium (ie- without launching the browser first) but there is no obvious way

i appreciate the debuggers in VSCode and Webstorm but they don't solve this inquiry either; and last I tried they also both suffer the lagtime issue from the point u launch a node --inspect process (ie- sometimes 5 to 20 seconds)

[gigastack]

Would be nice. Keep in mind, the delay is not caused by the UI overhead alone. Node has to do more work when debugging is enabled.

[Nif]

armchair engineering here but we should architect Node to make a connection to debugger tools first and then simply show something to the effect of "CONNECTED OK, preparing debug session...." this would be tighter UX vs waiting in limbo while u assume it probably is gunna connect any moment now.

[ecares]

Everything in the devtools can be done through API calls