Review requested:

• @nodejs/startup

Oh, I see that the inspector tests are already moved to sequential in #44551, though unfortunately the flake is still here (e.g. https://ci.nodejs.org/job/node-test-commit-aix/42722/)

@joyeecheung out of these 6 failed runs,
some are real deterministic & not flaky failures,
e.g here:

 Expected values to be strictly equal:
17:41:37             + actual - expected
17:41:37             
17:41:37             + 'C:\\workspace\\node-test-binary-windows-js-suites\\node\\Release\\node.exe: bad option: --import\r\n'
17:41:37             - ''

and here:

Error [ERR_NO_CRYPTO]: Node.js is not compiled with OpenSSL crypto support

however, I do see some flakes that seem to be related to the overall system load (i.e it looks like the failures happen when the program is not restarted and it should be):
https://ci.nodejs.org/job/node-test-commit-aix/42722/nodes=aix72-ppc64/console
https://ci.nodejs.org/job/node-test-commit-osx/47228/nodes=osx1015/console
https://ci.nodejs.org/job/node-test-binary-armv7l/2327/RUN_SUBSET=js,label=debian10-armv7l/console

watch mode does include parts that relay on both CPU (file change throttling) & disk loads,
so I will try moving to sequential

After landing this into the v16.x branch, this test fails: test/parallel/test-watch-mode.mjs; would you mind backporting this to the v16.x release branch?

Watch mode seems wonderful but I need a way to say I really want to exit without a restart. Is there an API or an option on Exit?

Watch mode seems wonderful but I need a way to say I really want to exit without a restart. Is there an API or an option on Exit?

@BobFrankston can you kindly open an issue with an example describing your use case?

Since the documentation is sparse, I conflated **nodemon'**s automatic restart with the restart on change. I realize --watch may not only do a restart on change but not assure the program continues to run after failure. Both are useful but distinct. If it only restarts on change, then it's worth thinking about a --persist or related option.

Maybe it would be good to add the ability to handle multiple entry points?

I am experiencing an issue where on some restarts, it seems watch mode restarts constantly for up to about 60 seconds - Eventually it recovers and runs normally.

I'm running on Windows 11 x64, Node v19.8.1 (not quite latest). Process Explorer confirmed that it was rapidly restarting and making 100s (or 1000s) of new processes that were dying quickly. My app does not modify local files. I believe my editor is also not repeatedly editing files.

I'm not even sure where/how to start debugging this... I should probably make a new issue.Uuntil I pull all the details into a real issue, this will have to suffice ;)

@mule-stand Running node ... is by definition one entry point. What are you imagining would change? In any case, this discussion would probably be better in a new Feature Request issue.

@BobFrankston You can add an infinite sleep at the end of your own program to keep node alive and watching for changes. This is what nodemon does internally. You need some process still running to be notified of any changes to the file system. You might even check process.execArgv.includes('--watch') and only run the infinite sleep if watch mode is enabled.

@cinderblock Please open an issue. This PR is not the right place to discuss such problems in depth.

@cinderblock Did you open an issue for this restart thing? I am facing the same issue with Win 11 and Node 20. I try to reproduce this with a small code example, but it is kinda random and I don't know what causing the issue.

Edit:
After some research I found out that fs.watch is reporting change events when a file gets read. I opened an issue for this: #50920