Stop Restarting Node.js: Meet Breakinto, an Interactive Debugger with Hot-Reload 🔥

As Node.js developers, we spend an incredible amount of time in the "Edit-Restart-Debug" cycle. Every console.log requires a process restart, which kills our flow and wastes hours every week.

I built Breakinto to change that. It’s an open-source, terminal-first interactive debugger designed to bring the "Pry" (Ruby) or "IPDB" (Python) experience to the Node.js ecosystem.

Why is it different?

• 🔍 Interactive REPL: Pause execution anywhere and jump into a live shell.

• 🔥 Hot-Reloading (.reload): Found a bug while paused? Edit the file in your IDE, hit .reload, and the running function patches in-memory without losing state.

• 📸 Snapshot Testing (.snap): Instantly serialize live runtime variables into Vitest/Jest test files to reproduce bugs later.

• 🏗️ Split-Process Architecture: Robust separation ensures the debugger never crashes your host application.

I’d love for the Product Hunt community to check it out and share your feedback! Whether you are learning a new codebase or chasing a production bug, I hope this makes your life easier.

Check it out on GitHub: https://github.com/learningyogendra-netizen/breakinto NPM: https://www.npmjs.com/package/breakinto

#NodeJS #Productivity #OpenSource #JavaScript #WebDev