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Transpilers

ts-node supports third-party transpilers as plugins. Transpilers such as swc can transform TypeScript into JavaScript much faster than the TypeScript compiler. You will still benefit from ts-node's automatic tsconfig.json discovery, sourcemap support, and global ts-node CLI. Plugins automatically derive an appropriate configuration from your existing tsconfig.json which simplifies project boilerplate.

What is the difference between a compiler and a transpiler?

For our purposes, a compiler implements TypeScript's API and can perform typechecking. A third-party transpiler does not. Both transform TypeScript into JavaScript.

Third-party plugins​

The transpiler option allows using third-party transpiler plugins with ts-node. transpiler must be given the name of a module which can be require()d. The built-in swc plugin is exposed as ts-node/transpilers/swc.

For example, to use a hypothetical "@cspotcode/fast-ts-compiler", first install it into your project: npm install @cspotcode/fast-ts-compiler

Then add the following to your tsconfig:

tsconfig.json
json
{
  "ts-node": {
    "transpileOnly": true,
    "transpiler": "@cspotcode/fast-ts-compiler"
  }
}
tsconfig.json
json
{
  "ts-node": {
    "transpileOnly": true,
    "transpiler": "@cspotcode/fast-ts-compiler"
  }
}

Write your own plugin​

To write your own transpiler plugin, check our API docs.

Plugins are require()d by ts-node, so they can be a local script or a node module published to npm. The module must export a create function described by our TranspilerModule interface. create is invoked by ts-node at startup to create one or more transpiler instances. The instances are used to transform TypeScript into JavaScript.

For a working example, check out out our bundled swc plugin: https://github.com/TypeStrong/ts-node/blob/main/src/transpilers/swc.ts