Node + TypeScript

.gitignore

.vscode/
build/
typings/

Hacking with Node, TypeScript and VS Code.md

Pre-requisites

• Node
• VS Code

npm install typescript -g
npm install typings -g
npm install mocha -g

Create Node & TypeScript project

npm init --force
typings install dt~node --global --save
typings install dt~mocha --global --save

• Modify package.json using template in this gist to define npm build and test scripts.
• Create tsconfig.json using template in this gist to allow running tsc to build all TypeScript files in the directory.
• Create .gitignore from template in this gist to avoid storing intermediate files produced by build in Git repository.
• Create .vscode/tasks.json using template in this gist to define VSCode build and test tasks.
• Create .vscode/launch.json using template in this gist
• Create src\product.ts using template in this gist
• Create test\product.ts using template in this gist

Build

• VSCode: Ctrl+Shift+B
• Shell: tsc or npm run build

How it works:

• npm runs the build script defined in package.json to invoke tsc command from the typescript module.
• tsc looks for tsconfig.json in the current directory and uses
  • outDir property to make tsc generate .js files in the build subfolder,
  • sourceMaps to generate .js.map along with them.

Test

• VSCode: Ctrl+Shift+P then Tasks: Run Test Task
• Shell: mocha build/test or npm test

Run

node build/index.js

How it works:

• tsc compiles index.ts to index.js in the build directory based on the tsconfig.json settings
• node runs the JavaScript in index.js

Debug application

VS Code

• Ctrl+Shift+D to open Debugger view
• select Launch debugger configuration
• F5

How it works:

• .vsconfig/launch.json defines Launch configuration
  • program property to indicate which .ts file contains the application entry point,
  • sourceMaps property to make debugger use .js.map files,
  • outDir property to specify where to find them.

Debug tests

• Shell
  • mocha build/test --debug-brk
• VS Code
  • Ctrl+Shift+D to open Debugger view
  • select Attach debugger configuration
  • F5

How it works:

• mocha tells node to stop as soon as it starts executing the test runner
• Node starts listening on port 5858
• VS Code Attach configuration supplies debugger settings
  • address tells debugger to connect to localhost where node is running
  • port tells debugger to connect to 5858 where node is listening

launch.json

{
	"version": "0.1.0",
	"configurations": [
		{
			"name": "Launch",
			"type": "node",
			"program": "index.ts",
			"runtimeArgs": ["--nolazy"],
			"env": {
				"NODE_ENV": "development"
			},
			"sourceMaps": true,
			"outDir": "build"
		},
		{
			"name": "Attach",
			"type": "node",
			"address": "localhost",
			"port": 5858,
			"sourceMaps": true,
			"outDir": "build"
		}	
	]
}

package.json

{
  "scripts": {
    "build": "tsc",
    "test": "tsc && mocha build/test"
  }
}

product.tests.ts

import assert = require("assert");
import product = require("../src/product");

describe('foo', () => {
  describe('bar', () => {
    it('returns baz', () => {
      var sut = new product.foo();
      assert.equal("baz", sut.bar());
    });
  });
});

product.ts

export class foo {
  bar(): string {
  	return "baz";
  }
}

tasks.json

{
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "command": "npm",
  "isShellCommand": true,
  "tasks": [
    {
      "taskName": "build",
      "showOutput": "always",
      "problemMatcher": "$tsc",
      "suppressTaskName": true,
      "isBuildCommand": true,
      "args": ["run", "build"]			
    },
    {
      "taskName": "test",
      "showOutput": "always",
      "isTestCommand": true		
    }
  ]
}

tsconfig.json

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "module": "commonjs",
    "outDir": "build",
    "sourceMap": true
  }
}