You can use the node-inspector. Run this command to install it via npm:

npm install -g node-inspector

Then you can debug your application using

node-debug app.js

The Github repository can be found here: https://github.com/node-inspector/node-inspector

Debugging natively

You can also debug node.js natively by starting it like this:

node debug your-script.js

To breakpoint your debugger exactly in a code line you want, use this:

debugger;

For more information see here.

In node.js 8 use the following command:

node --inspect-brk your-script.js

Then open about://inspect in a recent version of Google Chrome and select your Node script to get the debugging experience of Chrome’s DevTools.