Debugging mocha tests with ts-node, vs code and package type:node

[mcshaz]

Thanks to the discussion group, I have the following setup which works well for running mocha tests in a .ts file (from the comand line) in a project with type: "module":
package.json

  "type": "module",
  "moduleResolution": "node",
  "scripts": {
    "test": "mocha"
  }

tsconfig.json

  "compilerOptions": {
    "allowSyntheticDefaultImports": true,
    "module": "ES2020",
    "moduleResolution": "Node",

.mochrc.json

{
  "spec": "test/**/*.mocha.ts",
  "node-option": [
    "experimental-specifier-resolution=node",
    "loader=ts-node/esm"
  ]
}

I would like to attach the debugger to the tests, but the following visual studio code launch.json resuts in Unknown file extension ".ts". I added the env argument (1^st line in the code below) assuming that the execution context was no longer able to find the tsconfig file, but this has not helped

{
  "env": { "TS_NODE_PROJECT": "${workspaceFolder}/tsconfig.json" },
  "args": [
	"--timeout",
	"999999",
	"--config",
	"${workspaceFolder}/.mocharc.json"
  ],
  "internalConsoleOptions": "openOnSessionStart",
  "name": "Mocha Tests",
  "program": "${workspaceFolder}/node_modules/mocha/bin/_mocha",
  "request": "launch",
  "skipFiles": [
	"<node_internals>/**"
  ],
  "type": "node"
}

Does anyone know how I might fix this setup so that the debugger can attach to the moch tests? Thank you very much