I’m trying to debug my mocha tests in VS Code using a launch.json, but this error shows up:

ReferenceError: before is not defined

I also found that I get these errors when I move around and comment out sections of code:

ReferenceError: describe is not defined

ReferenceError: it is not defined

The before, it, and describe are mocha functions. I checked that mocha is being launched and it is. The debugger works fine but once it gets to a mocha function it throws an error.

Here’s my launch.json:

{
    "version": "0.2.0",
    "configurations": [
        {
            "args": [
                "-u",
                "tdd",
                "--timeout",
                "999999",
                "--colors",
                "${workspaceFolder}/test/**/*.test.js" <-- minor change from default config
            ],
            "internalConsoleOptions": "openOnSessionStart",
            "name": "Mocha Tests",
            "program": "${workspaceFolder}/node_modules/mocha/bin/mocha.js", // <-- mocha
            "request": "launch",
            "skipFiles": [
                "<node_internals>/**"
            ],
            "type": "node"
        }
    ]
}

This is the default configuration for mocha that VS Code automatically generates.