aws-cdk: Support Debugging of CDK Code via CLI parameter

[castleadmin]

Describe the feature

One of the big advantages of AWS-CDK ist the ability to define (reusable) infrastructure definitions in your favorite programming language. One of the advantages of programming languages is the possibility to debug issues if they arise.

Currently, the AWS-CDK doesn't offer any debugger support out of the box. Only language specific workarounds exist. It would be great to introduce a --debug-port parameter in AWS-CDK CLI like the one that is already present in AWS-SAM CLI.

Use Case

• Debug code issues
• Don't spend time to search for a debugging solution that works with your favorite programming language

Proposed Solution

No response

Other Information

No response

Acknowledgements

• I may be able to implement this feature request
• This feature might incur a breaking change

CDK version used

2.1010.0

Environment details (OS name and version, etc.)

All OS

[pahud]

Current vs Expected

Hi @castleadmin,

Thank you for your feature request and the thoughtful description! You are correct—CDK currently does not offer an out-of-the-box CLI flag for debugging such as a --debug-port like in AWS SAM CLI. As you noted, this leaves users to configure language- and IDE-specific workarounds.

Your request makes a lot of sense, especially for new users expecting a straightforward debugging experience. Currently, there is no code in the CDK CLI to accept or handle a dedicated debug port/flag. Implementing this would require the CLI to recognize a new parameter and forward it to the runtime process.

We'd like to encourage community contributions—if you or anyone else is interested in implementing this, starting with Node.js would be a good candidate, with examples like passing --inspect-brk=<port> to the node process. We'd recommend extending CLI argument parsing and process spawning logic to support this for the major supported languages.

Making this a p2 FR and requesting the maintainer for inputs.

[mrgrain]

Note that the AWS-SAM CLI feature is for debugging of locally run Lambda Functions . Another feature that the CDK currently doesn't have.

@castleadmin Is your suggestion to add debugger support for CDK apps (in various languages) or to add support for running Lambda Functions locally and then debug them?

[castleadmin]

@mrgrain I think it would be great, If support for debugging CDK apps will be added.

The AWS SAM CLI team faced the issue to provide debugging parameters for various programming languages.

They solved the issue with the help of 2 CLI parameters.

--debug-port Defines the debugging port and activates the debugging mode.

--debug-args Is used to define additional debugging arguments.

The supported languages Java, C#, Go, JavaScript/Typescript and Python match perfectly with the supported languages for CDK apps

https://github.com/aws/aws-sam-cli/blob/develop/samcli/local/docker/lambda_debug_settings.py#L24
https://github.com/aws/aws-sam-cli/blob/develop/samcli/local/docker/lambda_container.py#L268

@pahud @mrgrain The AWS SAM CLI implementation seems to be a good candidate. What do you think? Should we head into this direction?