ts-node-dev
Tweaked version of node-dev that uses ts-node under the hood.
It restarts target node process when any of required files changes (as standard node-dev) but shares Typescript compilation process between restarts. This significantly increases speed of restarting comparing to node-dev -r ts-node/register ..., nodemon -x ts-node ... variations because there is no need to instantiate ts-node compilation each time.
Install
yarn add ts-node-dev --dev
npm i ts-node-dev --save-dev
ts-node dependency version is not fixed, so it will install the latest version by default.
Usage
ts-node-dev [node-dev, ts-node flags] [ts-node-dev flags] [node cli flags] [--] [script] [script arguments]
So you just combine node-dev and ts-node options (see docs of those packages):
ts-node-dev --respawn --transpileOnly server.ts
There is also short alias tsnd for running ts-node-dev:
tsnd --respawn server.ts
Also there are additional options specific to ts-node-dev:
-
--prefer-ts(default: false) - for each.jsfile (that is not innode_modules) will try to check if corresponding.tsversion exists and require it. -
--ignore-watch(default: []) - files/folders to be ignored bynode-dev. But also this behaviour enhanced: it will also make upnew RegExpof passed ignore string and check absolute paths of required files for match.
So, to ignore everything innode_modules, just pass--ignore-watch node_modules. -
--debug- Some additional debug output. -
--interval- Polling interval (ms) -
--debounce- Debounce file change events (ms, non-polling mode) -
--clear(--cls) Will clear screen on restart -
--watch- Explicitly add files or folders to watch and restart on change (list separated by commas) -
--exit-child- Adds 'SIGTERM' exit handler in a child process.
Caveats and points of notice:
-
Especially for large code bases always consider running with
--transpile-onlyflag which is normal for dev workflow and will speed up things greatly. Note, thatts-node-devwill not put watch handlers on TS files that contain only types/interfaces (used only for type checking) - this is current limitation by design. -
--ignore-watchwill NOT affect files ignored by TS compilation. Use--ignoreoption (orTS_NODE_IGNOREenv variable) to pass RegExp strings for filtering files that should not be compiled, by default/node_modules/are ignored. -
Unknown flags (
nodecli flags are considered to be so) are treated like string value flags by default. The right solution to avoid ambiguity is to separate script name from option flags with--, for example:ts-node-dev --inspect -- my-script.ts -
The good thing is that
ts-node-devwatches usedtsconfig.jsonfile, and will reinitialize compilation on its change, but you have to restart the process manually when you update used version oftypescriptor make any other changes that may effect compilation results.
License
WTF.