TypeScript Execute (tsx): Node.js enhanced with esbuild to run TypeScript & ESM files
The tsx npm package is a CLI tool for running TypeScript and TSX files directly without pre-compilation. It's essentially a TypeScript execution and REPL for node.js, similar to how `node` works for JavaScript. It allows developers to quickly run scripts and prototypes written in TypeScript, including support for TSX (TypeScript with JSX syntax), which is commonly used in React development.
Execute TypeScript files directly
Allows you to run a TypeScript file directly from the command line without needing to compile it first. This is particularly useful for quick scripts or during development.
tsx script.tsREPL mode
Launches a REPL (Read-Eval-Print Loop) where you can type and execute TypeScript code interactively. This is useful for testing small snippets of code quickly.
tsxSupport for TSX
Enables execution of TSX files, which is TypeScript with JSX syntax. This is particularly useful for React developers who want to test components or scripts that include JSX.
tsx component.tsxts-node is a very popular package that offers similar functionality to tsx. It provides the ability to execute TypeScript files directly and use TypeScript in a REPL environment. ts-node is widely used in the TypeScript community for development and scripting. Compared to tsx, ts-node has been around longer and has a larger user base, but both aim to simplify the TypeScript development workflow by removing the compilation step.
esbuild-runner offers a way to run TypeScript (and JavaScript) files using the esbuild bundler/compiler. It's focused on providing extremely fast compilation and execution, leveraging esbuild's performance. While esbuild-runner and tsx share the goal of simplifying the execution of TypeScript files, esbuild-runner emphasizes speed and is part of the broader ecosystem around the esbuild project.
TypeScript Execute (
tsx): Node.js enhanced with esbuild to run TypeScript & ESM files
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tsx is a CLI command (alternative to node) for seamlessly running TypeScript & ESM, in both commonjs & module package types.
It's powered by esbuild so it's insanely fast.
Want to just run TypeScript code? Try tsx:
npx tsx ./script.ts
How does it compare to ts-node? Checkout the comparison.
If you're using it in an npm project, install it as a development dependency:
npm install --save-dev tsx
You can reference it directly in the package.json#scripts object:
{
"scripts": {
"dev": "tsx ..."
}
}
To use the binary, you can call it with npx while in the project directory:
npx tsx ...
If you want to use it in any arbitrary project without npx, install it globally:
npm install --global tsx
Then, you can call tsx directly:
tsx ...
tsx is designed to be a drop-in replacement for node, so you can use it just the way you would use Node.js. All command-line arguments (with the exception of a few) are propagated to Node.js.
Pass in a file to run:
tsx ./file.ts
tsconfig.json pathBy default, tsconfig.json will be detected from the current working directory.
To set a custom path, use the --tsconfig flag:
tsx --tsconfig ./path/to/tsconfig.custom.json ./file.ts
Alternatively, use the ESBK_TSCONFIG_PATH environment variable:
ESBK_TSCONFIG_PATH=./path/to/tsconfig.custom.json tsx ./file.ts
Run file and automatically rerun on changes:
tsx watch ./file.ts
All imported files are watched except from the following directories:
node_modules, bower_components, vendor, dist, and .* (hidden directories).
To exclude files from being watched, pass in a path or glob to the --ignore flag:
tsx watch --ignore ./ignore-me.js --ignore ./ignore-me-too.js ./file.ts
--clear-screen=false to disable clearing the screen on rerunStart a TypeScript REPL by running with no arguments:
tsx
Modules transformations are cached in the system cache directory (TMPDIR). Transforms are cached by content hash, so duplicate dependencies are not re-transformed.
Set the --no-cache flag to disable the cache:
tsx --no-cache ./file.ts
tsx is a standalone binary designed to be used in place of node, but sometimes you'll want to use node directly. For example, when adding TypeScript & ESM support to npm-installed binaries.
To use tsx as a Node.js loader, simply pass it in to the --loader flag.
Note: The loader is limited to adding support for loading TypeScript/ESM files. CLI features such as watch mode or suppressing "experimental feature" warnings will not be available.
# As a CLI flag
node --loader tsx ./file.ts
# As an environment variable
NODE_OPTIONS='--loader tsx' node ./file.ts
Tip: In rare circumstances, you might be limited to using the
-r, --requireflag.You can use
@esbuild-kit/cjs-loader, but transformations will only be applied torequire()(notimport).
If you prefer to write scripts that doesn't need to be passed into tsx, you can declare it in the hashbang.
Simply add #!/usr/bin/env tsx at the top of your file:
file.ts
#!/usr/bin/env tsx
console.log('argv:', process.argv.slice(2))
And make the file executable:
chmod +x ./file.ts
Now, you can run the file without passing it into tsx:
$ ./file.ts hello
argv: [ 'hello' ]
Node.js Loader to transform TypeScript to ESM.
Node.js require() hook to transform TypeScript & ESM to CommonJS.
tsx?tsx stands for "TypeScript execute". Mirroring npx, which stands for "Node.js package execute".
The 3-character package name offers an elegant developer experience, allowing usage like: npx tsx ....
Unfortunately, it overlaps with React's TSX/JSX, which stands for "TypeScript XML".
No, esbuild does not support type checking.
It's recommended to run TypeScript separately as a command (tsc --noEmit) or via IDE IntelliSense.
tsx different from ts-node?They're both tools to run TypeScript files. But tsx does a lot more to improve the experience of using Node.js.
tsx just works. It's zero-config and doesn't require tsconfig.json to get started, making it easy for users that just want to run TypeScript code and not get caught up in the configuration.
It's a single binary with no peer-dependencies (e.g. TypeScript or esbuild), so there is no setup necessary, enabling usage that is elegant and frictionless for first-time users:
npx tsx ./script.ts
tsx is zero-config because it has smart detections built in. As a runtime, it detects what's imported to make many options in tsconfig.json redundant—which was designed for compiling matching files regardless of whether they're imported.
It seamlessly adapts between CommonJS and ESM package types by detecting how modules are loaded (require() or import) to determine how to compile them. It even adds support for require()ing ESM modules from CommonJS so you don't have to worry about your dependencies as the ecosystem migrates to ESM.
Newer and unsupported syntax & features like importing node: prefixes are downgraded by detecting the Node.js version. For large TypeScript codebases, it has tsconfig.json paths aliasing support out of the box.
At the core, tsx is powered by esbuild for blazing fast TypeScript compilation, whereas ts-node (by default) uses the TypeScript compiler. Because esbuild doesn't type check, tsx is similar to ts-node --esm --swc (which uses the SWC compiler).
As a bonus, tsx also comes with a watcher to speed up your development.
Here's an exhaustive technical comparison between tsx, ts-node, and other runtimes.
No. tsx uses esbuild's Transform API, which doesn't support plugins.
No. tsx's integration with Node.js is designed to be seamless so there is no configuration.
Transformations are handled by esbuild, so it shares the same limitations such as:
eval() is not preservedtsconfig.json properties are supportedemitDecoratorMetadata is not supportedFor details, refer to esbuild's JavaScript caveats and TypeScript caveats documentation.
FAQs
TypeScript Execute (tsx): Node.js enhanced with esbuild to run TypeScript & ESM files
The npm package tsx receives a total of 3,749,987 weekly downloads. As such, tsx popularity was classified as popular.
We found that tsx demonstrated a healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released less than a year ago. It has 0 open source maintainers collaborating on the project.
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