My Favourite (& Easiest) Way to Run Nodejs App Written in TypeScript

#dev #typescript #nodejs
TLTR

Use tsx loader.

TypeScript Execute (tsx) | tsx

How to Run Nodejs Apps/Scripts Written in TypeScript with Minimal Configuration

tsconfig.json

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "target": "ES2020",
    "module": "CommonJS",
    "outDir": "dist",
    "strict": true,
    "esModuleInterop": true,
    "skipLibCheck": true,
    "forceConsistentCasingInFileNames": true
  },
  "include": ["src/**/*"],
  "exclude": ["node_modules"]
}

package.json

{
 // ...
 "scripts": {
    "build": "tsc",
    "start": "node --import=tsx src/index.ts"
  },
  
  "devDependencies": {
    "tsx": "^4.19.4",
    "typescript": "^5.8.3"
  }
}

Run 🎉

Simply run the command to boot your TypeScript app/script:
yarn run start

Example typescript app

TSX is not for running in production

For performance reasons tsx loader is not recommended for production running (only for local development).
In production, always use JS files created in the build step.

Further Reading

If you want to learn more about options "how to" run Nodejs apps written in TypeScript, check this post: The Easier Way To Setup Nodejs App Written in Typescrips - 5 Steps Needed

This article was originally published on https://craftengineer.com/. It was written by a human and polished using grammar tools for clarity.

Follow me on X (Formally, Twitter) or Bluesky.