How to Debug a Chalice App in Vscode

In this post I will show you how you can create a debug configuration in Visual Studio Code that will allow you to debug a Chalice application locally.

Assuming your virtual environment directory is inside your Chalice project's directory, add the following configuration to your launch.json file:

{
    "name": "Chalice: Local",
    "type": "python",
    "request": "launch",
    "program": "${workspaceFolder}/venv/bin/chalice",
    "args": [
        "local",
        "--no-autoreload",
    ],
    "console": "integratedTerminal",
    "justMyCode": true
}

Starting a debug session with that configuration will proceed to invoke the chalice local command to start the local dev server.

The cool thing here is how we are able to provide a path to an executable installed through Pip (in this case chalice after installing Chalice) and make the Vscode debugger run it 🌟

In my case my virtual environment directory is called venv, so you should change the path according to your configuration.