Debug hardhat project using intellij

Question

I've created an hardhat project that uses typescript. As I'm trying to run the test from intellij I'm getting:

TSError: ⨯ Unable to compile TypeScript:
test/index.ts(2,10): error TS2305: Module '"hardhat"' has no exported member 'ethers'.

If I run the test from command line it works just fine:

Here is my intellij run configuration:

On a side note - everything works just fine with a javascript hardhat project (I'm able to debug it using intellij without any problem), the problem occurs only with a typescript hardhat project.

I have tried installing mocha-typescript and @testdeck/mocha and change the intellij run configuration to run using mocha-typescript:

But then got:

× ERROR: Error: Could not load ui "mocha-typescript":

 Error: Cannot find module 'C:\Users\Yogev\dev\temp\mocha-typescript'
Require stack:
- C:\NodeNpm\npm\node_modules\mocha\lib\cli\run-helpers.js
- C:\NodeNpm\npm\node_modules\mocha\lib\cli\options.js
- C:\NodeNpm\npm\node_modules\mocha\bin\mocha
    at Function.Module._resolveFilename (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:880:15)
    at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:725:27)
    at Module.require (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:952:19)
    at require (internal/modules/cjs/helpers.js:88:18)
    at exports.validateLegacyPlugin (C:\NodeNpm\npm\node_modules\mocha\lib\cli\run-helpers.js:234:27)
    at C:\NodeNpm\npm\node_modules\mocha\lib\cli\run.js:355:9 {
  code: 'MODULE_NOT_FOUND',
  requireStack: [
    'C:\\NodeNpm\\npm\\node_modules\\mocha\\lib\\cli\\run-helpers.js',
    'C:\\NodeNpm\\npm\\node_modules\\mocha\\lib\\cli\\options.js',
    'C:\\NodeNpm\\npm\\node_modules\\mocha\\bin\\mocha'
  ]

Why is that? How can I debug my tests using intellij in a typescript project?

BTW, this is the test file:

Answer 1

ts-node doesn't parse all files in the project directory for types which–while reduces startup time–could lead to missing types.

To override this, try adding either:

• the --files flag to your ts-node arguments, or
• set the TS_NODE_FILES environment variable to true.

This behaviour is also described in the official Hardhat documentation: https://hardhat.org/guides/typescript.html#running-your-tests-and-scripts-directly-with-ts-node

In your case setting the environment variable on the IntelliJ run configuration should resolve the problem.