Here is a brief tip to debug Protractor tests inside WebStorm or Intellij.

Setup

This is only one possibility. Read the following do to analyze all options. https://github.com/angular/protractor/blob/master/docs/debugging.md

1. Open Run/Debug Configurations dialog
2. Add new Node.js configuration
3. On Configuration tab set:
   • Path to Node: path to node executable . e.g. ‘/usr/bin/node’
   • Working directory: your project base path e.g. ‘/usr/sesteva/myTests’
   • Path To Node JS App file: path to Protractor cli.js file (e.g. node_modules\protractor\lib\cli.js)
   • Application parameters: path to your Protractor configuration file (e.g. protractorConfig.js)
4. Click OK, place some breakpoints on your js files.
5. Click on Debug from the Run menu.

If you are using CoffeeScript

The only difference would be to just set the breakpoints on the generated JS.

I usually set my grunt coffee task to generate all JS files under .tmp folder

Add before Launch external tool

Program: grunt
Parameters: test-setup
Working directory: /home/sesteva/myTests

Warning

Note that the element function returns a promise. This means you cannot debug that line directly.

In order to debug an element() output, set a break point on the ‘then’ method; or create a then for it. Example:

 element(By.id('#myId')).then(function(elm){
    #breakpoint here
    elm.click()
 });