I was seeing the same issue:

```

[nodemon] clean exit - waiting for changes before restart

```

For me, the problem was that the default port (5000) was already in use. Changing the port number in `app.js` (e.g., `const PORT = 5001;`) resolved the issue, and nodemon started correctly.

Just a heads-up for anyone else running into this — sometimes a “clean exit” isn’t an error, it can just mean the port is occupied.