Typically the options to control nodemon are passed in via the CLI and are listed under the default nodemon --help command. nodemon can also be configured via a local and global config file: * $HOME/nodemon.json * $PWD/nodemon.json OR --config All config options in the .json file map 1-to-1 with the CLI options, so a config could read as: { "ext": "*.pde", "verbose": true, "exec": "processing --sketch=game --run" } There are a limited number of variables available in the config (since you could use backticks on the CLI to use a variable, backticks won't work in the .json config). * {{pwd}} - the current directory * {{filename}} - the filename you pass to nodemon For example: { "ext": "*.pde", "verbose": true, "exec": "processing --sketch={{pwd}} --run" } The global config file is useful for setting up default executables instead of repeating the same option in each of your local configs: { "verbose": true, "execMap": { "rb": "ruby", "pde": "processing --sketch={{pwd}} --run" } }