This has quite a few pieces of debugging instrumentation/dead-code, but it has some convenient magic to it.

puppeteer-with-persistent-chromium.js

const WSE_FILE = './.wsaddress'
const fs = require('fs')
// https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12871740/how-to-detach-a-spawned-child-process-in-a-node-js-script
// https://github.com/puppeteer/puppeteer/issues/4061
const LAUNCH_CONFIG = {
  headless: false,
  // handleSIGHUP: false,
  // handleSIGINT: false,
  // handleSIGTERM: false,
  // args: dontBackgroundArgs
  // slowMo: 25,                         
}

// const dontBackgroundArgs = [
//   '--disable-background-timer-throttling',
//   '--disable-backgrounding-occluded-windows',
//   '--disable-renderer-backgrounding'
// ];

const puppeteer = require('puppeteer')
const { spawnSync, spawn, execSync, exec  } = require('child_process')

function importWSEndpointIfItExists() {
  if (fs.existsSync(WSE_FILE)) {
     return fs.readFileSync(WSE_FILE).toString().trim()
  }
}

async function launchNewBrowserAndSaveWSE() {
    let args = puppeteer.defaultArgs()
    args = args.filter( arg => arg !== '--headless' )
    args = args.filter( arg => arg !== 'about:blank' )
    const chromiumProgram = puppeteer.executablePath()
    const source = spawn(
      chromiumProgram, 
      [ ...args, "--remote-debugging-port=9222" ], 
      { detached: true, stdio: [ 'ignore', 'pipe', 'pipe' ]  },
    )

    const stdoutWSEPromise = readIOSourceForWSE(source.stdout) // just for flagging unlogged chrome instances
    const stderrWSEPromise = readIOSourceForWSE(source.stderr)
    const fastFailingStderrWSE = await Promise.race([
      stderrWSEPromise,
      stdoutWSEPromise,
    ])
    
    fs.writeFileSync(WSE_FILE, fastFailingStderrWSE)
    console.log("Logged WSE to file")

    return await puppeteer.connect({ ...LAUNCH_CONFIG, browserWSEndpoint: fastFailingStderrWSE })
    
    

    // https://2ality.com/2018/05/child-process-streams.html
    // await echoReadable(source.stdout); // (B)

  // Exec way:
  // const executionStatement = chromiumProgram + ' ' + [ ...args, "--remote-debugging-port=9222" ].join(' ')
  // console.log('executionStatement:', executionStatement)
  // execSync(executionStatement)

}

function cutOutWSEUrlFromSTDOUT(haystack) {
  // const example1 = "DevTools listening on ws://127.0.0.1:9222/devtools/browser/36f86b67-2ce8-49de-9ee5-c11936e95e0c"
  const needle = haystack.split(' ')[3]
  return needle
}

function readIOSourceForWSE(sourceStream) {
  return new Promise( (resolve, reject) => {

      setTimeout( () => {
        reject('Timeout hit')
      }, 100000000)
    
      sourceStream.on('data', (chunk) => {
        line = chunk.toString().trim()
        console.log('line: ', line)
        if (line === '') {
          // ignore
          return
        }
        else if ("Opening in existing browser session." === line) {
          reject(new Error(`An unregistered version of chromium is running. Please quit it and try this script again.`))
        }
        else if (line.match(/^DevTools listening on ws/) ) {
          resolve(cutOutWSEUrlFromSTDOUT(line))
        // e.g. "DevTools listening on ws://127.0.0.1:9222"
        }
        else {
          reject(new Error(`unknown response when trying to resolve WS endpoint for browser: "${line}"`))
        }
        // if output
        //   DevTools listening on ws://127.0.0.1:9222
      });
  })
}

async function echoReadable(readable) {
  for await (const line of chunksToLinesAsync(readable)) { // (C)
    console.log('LINE: '+ chomp(line))
  }
}

async function getBrowser() {
  const wse = importWSEndpointIfItExists()
  if (wse === undefined || wse === '') {
    return await launchNewBrowserAndSaveWSE()
  }
  try {
    const connectionOptions = { ...LAUNCH_CONFIG, browserWSEndpoint: wse }
    return await puppeteer.connect(connectionOptions)

  } catch (error) {
    if (
      error.message.includes('connect ECONNREFUSED')
      || error.message.includes('Invalid URL')
    ) {
      return await launchNewBrowserAndSaveWSE()
    }
    throw error
  }
}

;( async () => {
  const browser = await getBrowser()
  const page = await browser.newPage()
  await page.goto('https://make.autotiv.com')

})()
;( async () => {

  // let wsendpoint
  //   while (true) {
  // }
  // process.exit(0)
  // const browser = puppeteer.connect()

  // const page = await browser.newPage()
  // await browser.disconnect()


}) 

function configureProcessToNotDetachChrome(browser) {
  // process.removeListener('exit',process.rawListeners('exit')[process.rawListeners('exit').length-1]);
  process.on('SIGINT', async () => { 
    console.log("disconnecting browser")
    await browser.disconnect()
  })
  console.log("Raw listeners:", process.rawListeners('exit'))
}

// For a fancier invocation, build from here:
// https://gist.github.com/benjamingr/0237932cee84712951a2
process.on('unhandledRejection', (reason) => {
  console.log("\x1b[38;5;1m UPR: ", reason)
});

[
  "SIGHUP", "SIGINT", "SIGQUIT", "SIGILL", "SIGTRAP", "SIGABRT", "SIGEMT",
  "SIGFPE", "SIGBUS", "SIGSEGV", "SIGSYS", "SIGPIPE", "SIGALRM", "SIGTERM",
  "SIGURG", "SIGTSTP", "SIGCONT", "SIGCHLD", "SIGTTIN", "SIGTTOU", "SIGIO",
  "SIGXCPU", "SIGXFSZ", "SIGVTALRM", "SIGPROF", "SIGINFO",
  "SIGUSR1", "SIGUSR2", 
].map( (signal) => {
  if ("SIGINT" === signal) return // dont define process.on(SIGINT)
  process.on(signal, () => {
    console.log(signal + " fired")
  })
})

// process.on('SIGCHLD', () => {
// });


console.log(process.pid)