How to pass node options when running react-router dev?

[MonstraG]

With running default package.json dev script:

"dev": "react-router dev",

I have the ability to pass, for example, --profile to enable Node.js profiler. I would like to be able to pass any Node.js option. How to do that?

In avoidance of X/Y problem, I'm specifically hitting

[TypeError: fetch failed]
Error: self-signed certificate; if the root CA is installed locally, try running Node.js with --use-system-ca
code: 'DEPTH_ZERO_SELF_SIGNED_CERT'

because my React router app is making a request to .Net backend which is running on a self-signed development certificate.

P.S. I arrived to this repo coming from
[Usage question] in https://github.com/remix-run/react-router/issues/new/choose, move me if that's not right.

[mcansh]

hey! this probably should have been opened on the react router repo instead of the remix repo, but i can try to help you nonetheless.

you should be able to use NODE_OPTIONS="--use-system-ca" npm run dev on macOS/linux

[MonstraG]

Yea, as I said, the [Usage question] button from inside of react-router repo sent me here.

NODE_OPTIONS="--use-system-ca" npm run dev

Doesn't work. I think that's because react-router script in node_modules does it's own exec node ....

(linux)

[MonstraG]

For my particular issue, one can just set

NODE_TLS_REJECT_UNAUTHORIZED=0

in .env, and then node will not care about certs, but that of course fixes my particular issue, not the general question.

[mcansh]

strange – NODE_OPTIONS="--use-system-ca" works for me on >= Node 22.15, depending on your node version you'll need to do different things

[aniruddhaadak80]

@MonstraG You can usually pass Node runtime flags via NODE_OPTIONS environment variable rather than trying to pass them through the react-router dev CLI directly.

For your self-signed cert case, try:
NODE_OPTIONS=--use-system-ca

Examples:

• Linux/macOS: NODE_OPTIONS=--use-system-ca npm run dev
• Windows PowerShell: $env:NODE_OPTIONS='--use-system-ca'; npm run dev

That keeps your package script unchanged while still applying Node flags to the process tree.

Sources:

• https://nodejs.org/api/cli.html#node_optionsoptions
• https://reactrouter.com/home

[AKzar1el]

I don't think this should be solved by trying to pass flags through react-router dev itself. I'd treat it as a Node runtime trust-store issue and configure Node before the CLI starts.

For a local trusted root CA, I'd try one of these first:

• NODE_OPTIONS=--use-system-ca npm run dev
• or NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS=/path/to/rootCA.pem npm run dev

On newer Node versions there's also NODE_USE_SYSTEM_CA=1.

I would avoid NODE_TLS_REJECT_UNAUTHORIZED=0 except as a temporary local-only test, because that disables TLS certificate validation globally for the process.

So the fix is less "how do I pass flags to react-router?" and more "make the Node process trust the dev certificate chain before react-router dev launches."