live-tsc VS tsx

Using commander.js and tsx, we can create executable programs written in TypeScript that run from the command line like any other CLI tool.

To test and iterate on backend code, I've started calling some modules (like OpenAI researches) from scripts I execute via the terminal. Copious console.debug and console.warn statements make this a kinda effective way to debug without having to craft a frontend. To execute these scripts, I use TSX resulting in commands like this one that extracts events from history books:

For other tools, you should check their documentation on custom conditions support. I've tried to run my project with tsx. As it supports all Node.js flags, I've just provided custom condition via -C flag:

Luckily, this is a very common thing and Tsx, a can help us with this. We simply have to import this module and we'll be able to execute Typescript code with Node.js:

Next, we need to set up a development script that will watch for changes in our TypeScript files and recompile them. Personally, I like to use tsx, as it provides a much faster development experience compared to the built-in TypeScript watcher or ts-node. First, install tsx:

At this point, you will have a setup which relies on tsx to understand TypeScript, and jsx-async-runtime to understand JSX/TSX templates.

I really enjoy frontend/node/typescript development. I roll my eyes whenever the HN-types complain about CSS or frontend development being a hellhole. Mostly the comments I see seem ignorant or impatient ("Why doesn't this thing work without be bothering to learn it?")

However, the intersection of typescript, nodejs, and ES modules is consistently the most frustrating experience I ever have. Trying to figure out which magic incantation of tsconfig/esbuild/tsc/node options will let me just write code and run it is a fools errand. You might figure something out, and then you try to use Jest and then you descend into madness again.

The biggest tip I can give people is to ditch ts-node and just use (the awkwardly named) tsx https://github.com/privatenumber/tsx, which pretty much just "mostly works" for running Typescript during dev for node.

The problem mostly seems to stem for all the stakeholders being pretty dogmatic to whatever their goals are, rather than the pragmatic option of just meeting people where they are. I really wish the Node, Typescript, Deno/Bun, and maybe some bundler people would come together and figure out how to make this easier for people.

If your TypeORM entity is written in TypeScript, you have to run ERDIA using ts-node or tsx as follows.

Want to import a package / file conveniently from esm.sh or unpkg or directly from a GitHub repo for a one-off script (for example). To do this I created a custom ESBuild plugin to handle HTTP imports - that worked for ,js files. To support running both ESM and CJS, I use tsx.