IntelliJ IDEA 2020.3 Help

Debugging the server- and the client-side code

With IntelliJ IDEA, you can debug the server-side code of a Node.js application together with its client-side JavaScript code. To do that, you need to create a separate JavaScript Debug configuration in addition to the Node.js configuration and run these two configurations together. You can do that in two ways:

  • Create a JavaScript Debug configuration from the Edit Configurations dialog (Run | Edit Configurations) and then click the Run toolbar button to start it, see Debugging an application running on an external web server for details.

  • Create a JavaScript Debug configuration from the Live Edit tab when creating or editing a Node.js configuration. In this case, the JavaScript Debug configuration will start automatically every time you start the Node.js configuration.

Create a JavaScript Debug configuration from the Node.js configuration

  1. From the main menu, select Run | Edit Configuration.

  2. From the list, select the Node.js run configuration to start together with a JavaScript Debug configuration. In the dialog that opens, switch to the Browser / Live Edit tab.

  3. Select After launch to start a browser automatically when you launch a debugging session.

  4. In the field below, type the URL address to open the application at.

  5. Choose the browser to use from the list next to the After launch checkbox.
    • To use the system default browser, select Default.

    • To use a custom browser, select it from the list. Note that Live Edit is fully supported only in Chrome.

    • To configure browsers, click the Browse button and adjust the settings in the Web Browsers dialog that opens. For more information, see Web browsers.

  6. Select the With JavaScript debugger checkbox.

Last modified: 29 March 2021