diff --git a/packages/create-app/bin/backstage-create-app b/packages/create-app/bin/backstage-create-app
index 467a0cae8f..902f341bfb 100755
--- a/packages/create-app/bin/backstage-create-app
+++ b/packages/create-app/bin/backstage-create-app
@@ -24,6 +24,8 @@ const isLocal = require('fs').existsSync(path.resolve(__dirname, '../src'));
 if (!isLocal || process.env.BACKSTAGE_E2E_CLI_TEST) {
   require('..');
 } else {
+  // Only used for development, so should be a devDependency
+  // eslint-disable-next-line import/no-extraneous-dependencies
   require('ts-node').register({
     transpileOnly: true,
     project: path.resolve(__dirname, '../../../tsconfig.json'),
diff --git a/packages/create-app/package.json b/packages/create-app/package.json
index 23a0b1a584..1f6f65d730 100644
--- a/packages/create-app/package.json
+++ b/packages/create-app/package.json
@@ -70,6 +70,11 @@
     "@types/recursive-readdir": "^2.2.0",
     "ts-node": "^8.6.2"
   },
+  "nodemonConfig": {
+    "watch": "./src",
+    "exec": "bin/backstage-create-app",
+    "ext": "ts"
+  },
   "files": [
     "bin",
     "dist",