1. Open the debug tab
2. Add a Chrome configuration, it'll fill out most the fields for you. For the port change it to 9876 (or whatever is specified in your karma.conf.js). See below.
3. Set breakpoint(s) in the code you want to debug
4. Run your the debug task which will open a chrome window to the specified port
5. Run your test command (ng test) and refresh the opened Chrome window if necessary

Sample configuration, they are created in a filed called launch.json

{
    // Use IntelliSense to learn about possible attributes.
    // Hover to view descriptions of existing attributes.
    // For more information, visit: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=830387
    "version": "0.2.0",
    "configurations": [
        {
            "type": "chrome",
            "request": "launch",
            "name": "Launch Chrome against localhost",
            "url": "http://localhost:9876",
            "webRoot": "${workspaceFolder}"
        }
    ]
}

In new jasmine-ts version, you have to include the jasmine.json to the args as this:

{
  "type": "node",
  "request": "launch",
  "name": "Jasmine Current File",
  "program": "${workspaceFolder}/node_modules/jasmine-ts/lib/index",
  "args": ["--config=jasmine.json", "${file}"],
  "console": "integratedTerminal",
  "internalConsoleOptions": "neverOpen"
}

To avoid this issue:

No specs found Finished in 0.003 seconds Incomplete: No specs found Randomized with seed 60766 (jasmine --random=true --seed=60766)

I don't think you can currently do something like node --debug-brk grunt test where test will spin up jasmine tests - since jasmine will invoke node on these spec files without the debug flag in place. I tried this and here is what I got:

node --debug-brk=3691 --nolazy ../../../usr/local/bin/grunt kftest --schema=9.2.1 --dbtype=sqlite --target=builder/properties --spec=test/builder/properties/properties-spec.js 
Debugger listening on port 3691
Running "kftest" task
>> going to run with spec:  test/builder/properties/properties-spec.js
>> command: node --debug-brk=46307 /Users/computername/project/node_modules/jasmine-node/lib/jasmine-node/cli.js test/builder/properties/properties-spec.js
Running "shell:kftest" (shell) task
Debugger listening on port 46307

This isn't too helpful since now vscode's debugger will be looking at 3691 while 46307 is not being inspected by anything - and I don't know how to tell vscode to also listen to that port.

Soooo what I ended up doing was to follow the answer posted here: Debugging jasmine-node tests with node-inspector

Basically my vscode launch.json included a config that looked like this:

{
  "name": "Jasmine-Node Debugging",
  "cwd": "${workspaceRoot}",
  "program": "${workspaceRoot}/node_modules/jasmine-node/lib/jasmine-node/cli.js",
  "request": "launch",
  "type": "node",
  "args": [
    "test/builder/properties/properties-spec.js"
  ]
}

Hope that helps.

In karma.conf.js I updated added debug option in your version.

customLaunchers: {
   Chrome_with_debugging: {
     base: 'Chrome',
     flags: ['--remote-debugging-port=9222'],
     debug: true
}}

launch.json Add below snippet as launch configuration,

{
    "name": "Debug tests",
    "type": "chrome",
    "request": "attach",
    "port": 9222,
    "sourceMaps": true,
    "webRoot": "${workspaceRoot}"
}

Then triggered the tests using below command,

ng test --browsers Chrome_with_debugging

Use Visual Studio Code debug option "Debug tests" to get attached to UT. With this I am able to debug unit tests using breakpoints in "Visual Studio Code + Debugger for Chrome extension".

Here is what I ended up doing.

1. npm install --save-dev jasmine @types/jasmine
2. Configure tsconfig.json to include jasmine types globally and generate source maps and send all output to the dist folder.

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    /* ... */
    "sourceMap": true,
    "outDir": "./dist",
    "types": [
      "node",
      "jasmine"
    ],
    /* ... */
  }
}

3. Created an npm task to run jasmine with node inspector inspect-brk requires node version 8 or above. You can use inspect with 7 and some versions of 6 but I was worried it might not capture my breakpoints in time and didn't investigate that option much.

{
  /* ... */
  "scripts": {
    "build": "tsc --project .",
    "test:debug": "npm run build && node --inspect-brk node_modules/jasmine/bin/jasmine.js JASMINE_CONFIG_PATH=jasmine.json"
  },
  /* ... */
}

4. Created a launch task in VS code (launch.json) to launch the NPM task.

{
  /* ... */
  "configurations": [
    /* ... */
    {
      "type": "node",
      "request": "launch",
      "name": "Run Jasmine Tests",
      "runtimeExecutable": "npm",
      "runtimeArgs": [
        "run-script",
        "test:debug"
      ],
      "outFiles": [
        "${workspaceRoot}/dist/**.js"
      ],
      "protocol": "inspector",
      "port": 9229,
      "sourceMaps": true
    },
    /* ... */
  ]
  /* ... */
}

Once you've done all this you can run the launch task from visual studio. It will run your code and stop at applicable breakpoints.

You can run the jasmine.js file via node and pass JASMINE_CONFIG_PATH as an environment variable.

JASMINE_CONFIG_PATH="test/jasmine.json" node --debug-brk --no-lazy node_modules/jasmine/bin/jasmine.js

The following configuration works fine for me and allow to debug jasmine tests. In your launch.json:

{
    // Name of configuration; appears in the launch configuration drop down menu.
    "name": "Launch Unit Tests",
    // Type of configuration.
    "type": "node",
    // Workspace relative or absolute path to the program.
    "program": "spec/runner.ts",
    // Automatically stop program after launch.
    "stopOnEntry": false,
    // Command line arguments passed to the program.
    "args": [],
    // Workspace relative or absolute path to the working directory of the program being debugged. Default is the current workspace.
    "cwd": ".",
    // Workspace relative or absolute path to the runtime executable to be used. Default is the runtime executable on the PATH.
    "runtimeExecutable": null,
    // Optional arguments passed to the runtime executable.
    "runtimeArgs": ["--nolazy"],
    // Environment variables passed to the program.
    "env": {
        "NODE_ENV": "development"
    },
    // Use JavaScript source maps (if they exist).
    "sourceMaps": true,
    // If JavaScript source maps are enabled, the generated code is expected in this directory.
    "outDir": "dist/spec",
    "request": "launch"
}

The runner.ts is as follows:

'use strict';

var Jasmine = require('jasmine');
var j = new Jasmine();

j.loadConfigFile('spec/support/jasmine.json');
j.configureDefaultReporter({
    showColors: true
});
j.execute();

The project file structure is:

-spec
--runner.ts
--support
----jasmine.json
--folderWithTests1
-dist
--spec
.....

Note - "dist" is the folder where spec ts files are built to. Therefore "outDir" is set to "dist/spec".

Hope this will help.