Handy little script to add a launch for a particular node script to the VS Code launch configuration, so you don't have to do it in Code itself. Should be run from the project's base directory.

add-code-launch.js

#!/usr/bin/env node

'use strict'

const fs = require('fs')
const path = require('path')

const LaunchFile = '.vscode/launch.json'
const LaunchDir = path.dirname(LaunchFile)

const script = process.argv[2]

if (!script) {
  exit(1, 'expecting name of script')
}

if (!exists(script)) {
  exit(1, `script does not exist: ${script}`)
}

const launchJSON = readLaunchJSON()
const newConfig = getNewConfig(script)

launchJSON.configurations.push(newConfig)

writeLaunchConfig(launchJSON)

function getNewConfig () {
  return {
    name: script,
    type: "node",
    request: "launch",
    program: script,
    stopOnEntry: false,
    args: [],
    cwd: "${workspaceRoot}",
    runtimeExecutable: null,
    runtimeArgs: [ "--nolazy" ],
    env: { NODE_ENV: "development" },
    externalConsole: false,
    sourceMaps: false,
    outDir: null
  }
}

function readLaunchJSON () {
  const newLaunchJSON = {
    version: "0.2.0",
  	configurations: []
  }

  let jsonString

  try {
    jsonString = fs.readFileSync(LaunchFile)
  } catch (err) {
    jsonString = JSON.stringify(newLaunchJSON)
  }

  return JSON.parse(jsonString)
}

function writeLaunchConfig(json) {
  const stats_vscode = exists(LaunchDir)
  if (!stats_vscode) {
    fs.mkdirSync(LaunchDir)
  }

  fs.writeFileSync(LaunchFile, JSON.stringify(json, null, 4))
}

function exists(fileName) {
  try {
    return fs.statSync(fileName)
  } catch (err) {
    return false
  }
}

function exit (code, message) {
  console.log(message)
  process.exit(code)
}