@saptools/cf-debugger

@saptools/cf-debugger

Open a verified Node.js inspector tunnel to an SAP BTP Cloud Foundry app from one command. Each concurrent session has its own local port, isolated CF_HOME, and lock-guarded state entry.

Install

npm install -g @saptools/cf-debugger

Node.js 20+ and the official cf CLI are required. CF CLI v8 is recommended. Non-web process targeting uses cf ssh --process and requires CF CLI v7+. On macOS, lsof is a soft dependency used to prove which PID owns a local listening port. Install it if cf-debugger reports TUNNEL_OWNER_UNVERIFIED. Without it, an explicit stop refuses to signal a state-recorded PID whose port ownership cannot be proved; teardown still completes when the spawned child is independently confirmed dead.

Updates

Every command first checks npm for a newer @saptools/cf-debugger (at most once an hour, one small request with a 2-second timeout) and, when one exists, installs that exact version with the package manager that owns the running binary and re-runs the command you typed on the new version. Both steps are announced on stderr; nothing is printed when the install is already current:

cf-debugger: updating 0.3.0 -> 0.4.0 ...
cf-debugger: updated to 0.4.0; re-running the command

If the install cannot complete, one stderr line gives the manual command and the command runs on the installed version; that version is not retried for a day. cf-debugger self-update forces the check and install now; cf-debugger self-update --check only reports.

Control	Effect
SAPTOOLS_AUTO_UPDATE=on|notify|off	on (default) installs and re-runs; notify prints the manual command once per version; off never checks. Applies to every @saptools CLI.
CF_DEBUGGER_AUTO_UPDATE	same values, this CLI only; wins over the global variable
SAPTOOLS_UPDATE_INTERVAL_MINUTES	minutes between checks (default 60; 0 checks on every run)
SAPTOOLS_NPM_REGISTRY	registry to check and install from (default: npm's configured registry, then npmjs)
SAPTOOLS_UPDATE_DEBUG=1	explain on stderr why nothing happened

The updater switches itself off in CI (CI set), under NODE_ENV=test or NO_UPDATE_NOTIFIER, when the binary runs from a source checkout, an npm link or an npx cache, and inside the re-run itself. It never writes to stdout, never asks for input, never uses sudo, and never moves onto a prerelease. Its state lives in ~/.saptools/updates/.

Quick start

export SAP_EMAIL="you@company.com"
export SAP_PASSWORD="your-sap-password"

cf-debugger start \
  --region eu10 \
  --org my-org \
  --space dev \
  --app my-app \
  --verbose

Successful output includes the complete attachment target:

Debugger ready for my-app (eu10/my-org/dev).
  Process:     web
  Instance:    0
  Local port:  20142
  Remote port: 9229
  Session id:  550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000
  Tunnel PID:  83421
  Node PID:    4312
Press Ctrl+C to stop.

Attach the IDE to 127.0.0.1:20142. Node derives the advertised webSocketDebuggerUrl from the incoming request's Host header, so a URL returned through the forward already names the local forwarded port and is directly usable. cf-debugger validates that the URL is well formed but does not print or follow it.

CLI

start

cf-debugger start --region eu10 --org my-org --space dev --app my-app
cf-debugger start eu10/my-org/dev/my-app --remote-port 9230
cf-debugger start my-app --process worker --instance 2 --node-pid 4312
cf-debugger start my-app --startup-timeout 300 --timeout 180 --verbose

When region, org, or space is omitted, the current cf target supplies it.

Flag	Meaning
--region <key>	SAP region key; defaults to the current CF target
--api-endpoint <url>	Absolute HTTPS endpoint override, including private/nonstandard hosts
--org <name>, --space <name>, --app <name>	CF target and app
--process <name>	CF process, default web
-i, --instance <index>	Zero-based process instance, default 0
--node-pid <pid>	Exact remote Node PID
--port <number>	Preferred local port; otherwise choose from 20000–20999
--remote-port <number>	Port where cf-debugger looks for an existing remote inspector, default 9229
--timeout <seconds>	Local-tunnel and inspector-readiness budget, default 180
--startup-timeout <seconds>	Overall startup deadline, default 300, maximum 1800
--allow-ssh-enable-restart	Permit app-level SSH enablement and one app restart
--no-ssh-enable-restart	Explicitly forbid that mutation, overriding flag/environment
--verbose	Print status, retry, and redacted tunnel transport diagnostics

Important

App restart is opt-in in 0.2.0. By default, a disabled-SSH app fails with SSH_NOT_ENABLED and no deployment mutation. Use --allow-ssh-enable-restart, or set CF_DEBUGGER_ALLOW_RESTART=1, only when restarting the named app is acceptable. CF_DEBUGGER_ALLOW_RESTART=0 keeps the guard enabled for a production shell and also vetoes a programmatic allowSshEnableRestart: true. The environment value 1 can opt in the CLI, but never grants permission to a programmatic caller by itself.

--api-endpoint accepts arbitrary hostnames but requires an absolute https: URL with no userinfo, query, fragment, or non-root path. Invalid values are rejected before cf api or cf auth. Version 0.2.2 intentionally rejects plaintext http:// landscapes because credentials would be sent to that endpoint.

Even with permission, a restart occurs only when all of these are true:

1. the one-shot SSH error specifically says SSH support is disabled;
2. cf ssh-enabled <app> proves app-level SSH is disabled;
3. this invocation runs cf enable-ssh <app>;
4. a second probe proves app-level SSH is now enabled.

An unknown probe result, an already-enabled app, a permission error, or a space-level SSH policy never causes a restart. Before an allowed restart, stderr names the app and org/space. With an explicit --node-pid, automatic restart is always rejected because the container replacement invalidates that PID.

Read-only CF commands have a 60-second per-attempt cap and retry transient transport errors with bounded exponential delays while the single overall startup budget still has time. Deployment-mutating commands have a separate 180-second cap and are never retried: a timed-out enable/restart reports CF_MUTATION_TIMEOUT because the server-side mutation may still be completing. cf auth has no outer retry loop, and rejected credentials fail after one attempt; repeated manual failures may count toward a tenant's identity-provider lockout policy. The one-shot SSH signal and readiness wait are also clamped to the same overall deadline. No retry configuration multiplies startup work past --startup-timeout. After a timeout, fail-closed tunnel and state cleanup still runs; that safety teardown can briefly extend the observed command wall time rather than abandoning an unverified child.

stop

cf-debugger stop --session-id 550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000
cf-debugger stop eu10/my-org/dev/my-app
cf-debugger stop my-app --api-endpoint https://api.cf.eu10.hana.ondemand.com
cf-debugger stop my-app --node-pid 4312
cf-debugger stop --all
cf-debugger stop --session-id 550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000 --force

stop --all attempts every local session, reports stopped, forced, stale, pending, and failed outcomes separately, and exits 70 if any tunnel cleanup failed (1 for other failures). It cannot be combined with a positional selector, --session-id, or target selector options; ambiguous scope is rejected instead of widening to every session.

stop --force means “forget safely,” not “kill harder.” It never signals a PID whose tunnel ownership is unproven. It forgets the state record first, then best-effort removes only the exact derived v2 CF_HOME. A deletion failure is non-fatal and warns that the retained path may contain a live refresh token; doctor then reports it as an orphan eligible for doctor --cleanup. The warning also names the abandoned PID and port for manual investigation. If a damaged record names a non-owned home path, that path is left untouched while the record is still forgotten.

list and status

cf-debugger list
cf-debugger status --session-id 550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000
cf-debugger status eu10/my-org/dev/my-app --api-endpoint https://api.example

list prunes only records proven stale. PID liveness is paired with an optional OS process-start token to detect PID reuse; older records without the additive token retain the compatible PID-only check. A ready record is healthy only when the complete listener-owner set contains its recorded tunnel PID. Ownership that cannot be inspected remains explicit rather than being guessed.

status prints null only when no exact session matches. Ambiguity is a coded SESSION_AMBIGUOUS failure; refine with session ID, API endpoint, or Node PID.

doctor

cf-debugger doctor
cf-debugger doctor --cleanup

The default is read-only JSON reporting. It includes:

• every local state record with its health verdict and reason;
• v2 session homes with no state record;
• listeners in 20000–20999 that no state record claims;
• leftover state temp, lock, recovery, stop-intent, and corrupt-backup files;
• legacy v1 state/homes, home count, parseable claimed sessions, conservative PID liveness, and their credential-retention risk.

--cleanup removes only canonical orphan v2 homes and sufficiently old, package-owned temp/lock/recovery/stop-intent artifacts. It revalidates orphan homes against lock-guarded state immediately before deletion. It never signals an unclaimed listener, removes corrupt evidence, or removes legacy v1 artifacts. Corrupt backups include a manual-removal command in the report while remaining ineligible for automatic cleanup. A symlinked v2 homes root is reported and never traversed.

Region resolution

Curated region keys are available from listKnownRegionKeys(). Keys matching aa00 or aa00-000 also work before the curated table is updated: cf-debugger synthesizes https://api.cf.<key>.hana.ondemand.com, or the .platform.sapcloud.cn domain for cn*, and warns with the synthesized URL. This supports new regions but makes a syntactically valid typo such as eu99 reach DNS; verify the warning or use --api-endpoint. Malformed keys fail early with UNKNOWN_REGION.

How it works

1. Resolve and validate the endpoint, deadline, target, and credentials.
2. Prune only provably stale state and register a unique session/port.
3. Run cf api, environment-only cf auth, cf target, and an app existence check.
4. Probe the selected instance through one-shot cf ssh.
5. If an inspector already owns the remote port and is Node, reuse that PID.
6. Otherwise:
   • choose the sole Node PID when exactly one exists;
   • with several Node PIDs, use the app $PORT listener only as a tiebreaker;
   • otherwise fail NODE_PROCESS_AMBIGUOUS.
7. Send SIGUSR1 when needed and prove the selected PID owns the configured remote inspector port.
8. Spawn detached cf ssh -N -L <local>:localhost:<remote>.
9. Prove the spawned PID is among all owners of the local listener.
10. Request GET /json/list through the tunnel and require HTTP 200 plus a non-empty target array whose first entry has a well-formed webSocketDebuggerUrl.
11. Persist ready state and return a DebuggerHandle.

Node's Linux cluster default can leave the app $PORT socket owned by the cluster primary rather than a request-handling worker. When several Node processes exist, inspect the reported candidates and pass --node-pid explicitly if a worker is the intended target.

The remote probe reads /proc/<pid>/exe, not argv. Its marker lines are filtered by a strict saptools-inspector-* prefix, so CF SSH banners cannot impersonate results. GNU find -lname is capability-probed and is normally fast; the portable fallback walks descriptors with readlink and can take roughly 10–12 seconds in a descriptor-heavy non-GNU container.

--remote-port does not choose the port opened by SIGUSR1; Node always uses its default inspector port for that signal. A non-default value is therefore for an app already started with matching --inspect=<port>.

Status sequence

The public onStatus sequence is:

starting → logging-in → targeting → signaling
         → [ssh-enabling → ssh-restarting → signaling]
         → tunneling → ready → stopping → stopped

Verbose retries repeat the current phase with a message and remaining budget. After starting is emitted, startup failure emits terminal error and never follows it with stopped. Option/credential/region validation can reject before the status stream begins, in which case no callback is emitted. Unexpected tunnel failure after readiness likewise emits terminal error; cleanup still runs without claiming a normal stop sequence.

State and security

~/.saptools/cf-debugger-state-v2.json
~/.saptools/cf-debugger-state-v2.lock
~/.saptools/cf-debugger-homes-v2/<sessionId>/

State is written as a 0600 temp file plus atomic rename while a token-owned open(..., "wx") lock is held. The parent and session-home directories are 0700. Keep ~/.saptools on a local filesystem: exclusive-create locking is not reliably atomic on every NFS/SMB implementation. A generous age fallback recovers foreign-host lock files, but it cannot make a network filesystem's locking semantics safe.

Each isolated CF_HOME contains CF CLI credentials, including a live refresh token. A clean stop removes it. If TUNNEL_TERMINATION_FAILED retains state and the home, recover the process first, then run stop --force. If a record has already disappeared but its canonical home remains, use doctor --cleanup. Do not leave recovered homes indefinitely.

A damaged entry no longer erases healthy sessions. Invalid entries are dropped individually, and the original state file is moved to a private .corrupt-<timestamp>-<uuid> backup before any repair. Completely invalid JSON, version, or root shape is likewise preserved before a fresh empty v2 file is written.

During mixed-version use, an older cf-debugger sharing this v2 file may strip optional fields it does not understand, including process-identity and startup budget data. Newer code treats an absent/legacy identity as “cannot tell” and retains the record with PID-only compatibility rather than pruning it; doctor surfaces that degraded verdict. Updating every installed consumer is the only way to restore the stronger identity check persistently.

Legacy ~/.saptools/cf-debugger-homes/ directories may still contain live refresh and access tokens. doctor reports but never deletes them. After confirming no v1 tunnel is running, remove them explicitly:

rm -rf "$HOME/.saptools/cf-debugger-homes" \
       "$HOME/.saptools/cf-debugger-state.json" \
       "$HOME/.saptools/cf-debugger-state.lock"

The v2 CLI never adopts or mutates v1 sessions. Prefer CLI/API operations over editing the v2 JSON by hand.

Credentials are passed to cf auth as CF_USERNAME and CF_PASSWORD in the child environment, never argv. CF command and tunnel diagnostics are bounded and redact sensitive values before they reach errors or verbose output. CF_COLOR=false is forced so ANSI escapes cannot corrupt output parsing.

Environment variables

Variable	Meaning
SAP_EMAIL, SAP_PASSWORD	CF authentication credentials
CF_DEBUGGER_ALLOW_RESTART=0|1	CLI default; 0 is also a hard veto for the programmatic API
CF_DEBUGGER_CF_BIN	Replace the cf executable; useful for wrappers and deterministic test stubs

A caller-provided child environment cannot override the per-session CF_HOME.

Errors and exit status

Documented domain failures use Error [CODE]: .... An unexpected operating system or filesystem failure can still surface as a plain Error without a domain code; it is never converted into success.

Code	Meaning
UNKNOWN_REGION, UNSAFE_INPUT, MISSING_CREDENTIALS	Invalid endpoint/key, selector, numeric input, or credentials
CF_LOGIN_FAILED, CF_AUTH_FAILED, CF_TARGET_FAILED, CF_CLI_FAILED, CF_CLI_TIMEOUT	CF command failure; rejected auth is not retried
CF_MUTATION_TIMEOUT	A deployment mutation timed out, was not retried, and may still be completing remotely
STARTUP_TIMEOUT, ABORTED	Overall deadline expired, or caller/stop intent cancelled startup
APP_NOT_FOUND	The targeted app does not exist in the selected org/space
SSH_NOT_ENABLED, SSH_PERMISSION_DENIED, SSH_STATE_UNKNOWN	Restart refused/not useful, permission denied, or SSH state ambiguous
NODE_PID_RESTART_UNSAFE	Explicit PID cannot survive an app restart
NODE_PROCESS_NOT_FOUND, NODE_PROCESS_AMBIGUOUS, NODE_PID_INVALID	Remote Node selection failed closed
USR1_SIGNAL_FAILED, INSPECTOR_NOT_READY, INSPECTOR_OWNER_MISMATCH, INSPECTOR_OUTPUT_TOO_LARGE	Remote signal/ownership protocol failed
TUNNEL_NOT_READY	The spawned local forward did not bind
PORT_UNAVAILABLE, TUNNEL_PROCESS_MISSING	Local port allocation failed, or the spawned tunnel exposed no PID
TUNNEL_OWNER_UNVERIFIED, TUNNEL_OWNER_MISMATCH	Local listener ownership could not be proved
INSPECTOR_UNREACHABLE	Local forward bound, but /json/list did not prove an attachable remote inspector
TUNNEL_EXITED, TUNNEL_TERMINATION_FAILED, TUNNEL_OWNERSHIP_UNVERIFIED	Tunnel died, cleanup could not terminate it, or stop could not safely signal it
SESSION_ALREADY_RUNNING, SESSION_AMBIGUOUS, SESSION_NOT_FOUND	Session selection conflict
SESSION_STATE_LOST, SESSION_STATE_CONFLICT, STATE_LOCK_TIMEOUT	Atomic state/lifecycle invariant failed
CF_HOME_CLEANUP_FAILED	Session state was removed but lifecycle cleanup could not remove its exact credential-bearing CF home
PACKAGE_METADATA_INVALID	Runtime package metadata has no usable version
STOP_FAILED	One entry in a batch stop failed with a non-coded internal error

Exit	Meaning
0	Clean completion
1	Coded operational/startup error, including STARTUP_TIMEOUT
70	Tunnel or lifecycle cleanup failed; ownership state or a credential-bearing home may remain
SSH child's nonzero code	An unexpected numeric SSH exit is preserved, for example 255
128 + signal	Tunnel child died from a signal, for example 137 for SIGKILL
130, 143	User interrupted with SIGINT or SIGTERM

Programmatic API

import {
  startDebugger,
  stopDebugger,
  stopAllDebuggers,
  listSessions,
  runDoctor,
} from "@saptools/cf-debugger";

const handle = await startDebugger({
  region: "eu10",
  org: "my-org",
  space: "dev",
  app: "my-app",
  startupTimeoutMs: 300_000,
  allowSshEnableRestart: false,
});

// Attach to handle.session.localPort.
await handle.dispose();

const summary = await stopAllDebuggers();
// Outcomes and counts distinguish stopped/forced/stale/pending/failed.

Persisted schema additions in 0.2.0 are optional. Absence means compatible fallback behavior because an older mixed-version writer may strip fields it does not know. State remains version "2".

FAQ

Does this modify the remote app?

Not by default. Inspector activation sends SIGUSR1 to the verified Node process, but app-level SSH enablement and cf restart require explicit --allow-ssh-enable-restart permission. Even with permission, restart occurs only after this run changes app SSH from proven disabled to proven enabled; an already-enabled, unknown, permission-denied, or space-policy result never restarts the app.

Is session state always removed when the CLI exits?

Only after cleanup is verified. TUNNEL_TERMINATION_FAILED deliberately retains state and the isolated credential-bearing CF_HOME; recover it with doctor and stop --force instead of assuming the next start can proceed.

Development

pnpm --filter @saptools/cf-debugger lint
pnpm --filter @saptools/cf-debugger typecheck
pnpm --filter @saptools/cf-debugger test:unit
pnpm --filter @saptools/cf-debugger build

The fake-backed tests set CF_DEBUGGER_CF_BIN. Live E2E tests require a safe non-production CF target and credentials; do not run them against production.