tsx
TypeScript Execute (tsx
): Node.js enhanced with esbuild to run TypeScript & ESM files
Features
- Blazing fast on-demand TypeScript & ESM compilation
- Works in both CommonJS and ESM packages
- Supports next-gen TypeScript extensions (
.cts
& .mts
) - Supports
node:
import prefixes - Hides experimental feature warnings
- TypeScript REPL
- Tested on Linux & Windows with Node.js v12~18
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About
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.
Install
Local installation
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 ...
Global installation
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 ...
Usage
Run TypeScript / ESM / CJS module
Pass in a file to run:
tsx ./file.ts
Watch mode
Run file and automatically re-run 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).
Press Return to manually re-run.
REPL
Start a TypeScript REPL by running with no arguments:
tsx
Cache
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
Node.js Loader
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
with Node.js, pass it to the --loader
flag.
Note: Node.js's experimental feature warnings will not be suppressed when used as a loader.
node --loader tsx ./file.ts
NODE_OPTIONS='--loader tsx' node ./file.ts
Tip: In rare circumstances, you might be limited to using the -r, --require
flag.
You can use @esbuild-kit/cjs-loader
, but transformations will only be applied to require()
.
Dependencies
FAQ
Does it do type-checking?
No, esbuild does not support type checking.
It's recommended to run TypeScript separately as a command (tsc --noEmit
) or via IDE IntelliSense.
How is tsx
different from ts-node
?
They are both tools to run TypeScript files.
The main difference is that tsx
is powered by esbuild for blazing fast TypeScript compilation, whereas ts-node
uses the TypeScript compiler, which is not as fast.
Because esbuild doesn't do type checking, tsx
is more equivalent to ts-node --esm --transpileOnly
.
Here's an exhaustive comparison between tsx
vs ts-node
(and other runtimes).
If you migrated from ts-node
, please share your performance gains here!