2.7TypeScript Configuration for Test Projects

// tsconfig.json
{
    "compilerOptions": {
        "target": "ES2020",
        "module": "commonjs",
        "strict": true,
        "esModuleInterop": true,
        "outDir": "./dist",
        "rootDir": "./src",
        "types": ["jest", "node"]
    },
    "include": ["src/**/*", "tests/**/*"]
}

Running TypeScript Directly on Node.js

As of July 2026, Node.js 24 is the active LTS release, and its native TypeScript type-stripping is stable: node app.ts just runs, no ts-node or build step required. (Node.js 26 is the Current release, and starting with Node 27 the project moves to one major release per year.)

One critical caveat: type-stripping only removes the type annotations -- it does not type-check. A test suite can run "green" on node app.ts while containing type errors. Keep tsc --noEmit as a separate CI step so the compiler still verifies your types:

# Run a TypeScript script directly (Node.js 24 LTS)
node scripts/seed-test-data.ts

# Type-check in CI -- type-stripping alone will not catch type errors
npx tsc --noEmit