Tomcat context.xml from META-INF folder for context root configuration

I have an application that is deploying to Tomcat 8. This application must be the context root.

For this, I put the root.xml file in the conf \ Catalina \ localhost folder and it worked.

Now the problem is that when I debug the IntelliJ (remote host) idea, it is not deployed as the root application.

It seems the only way to fix this issue is to add the context.xml file to the META-INF folder and point the config there.

Now when I do this, the context root configuration from the context.xml file is not picked up.

Any thoughts on this? Ultimately, I just need to debug the application via a remote server.