Provide a command-line tsc flag for specifying type in package.json

[not-my-profile]

To quickly check if some package properly provides its types under node16 from ESM it would be convenient if you could specify "node16 & ESM" solely on the command-line, but currently that does not appear to be possible since you apparently have to put "type": "module" in the package.json file.

I also tried using --moduleDetection force but that didn't have the same effect as "type": "module" in package.json either.

[fatcerberus]

This is a Node.js runtime requirement, so any option to override it would essentially be lying to TS about the runtime environment, leading to runtime errors. It would do more harm than good, IMO.

[not-my-profile]

Fair enough ... I still think the moduleDetection documentation should be clarified ... I guess it's only about the detection of other modules but not the detection of the current module?

[fatcerberus]

moduleDetection is about detecting module vs. not-module. All moduleDetection: "force" does it make TS detect files as modules (instead of old-style global scripts) even when they have no imports/exports. What kind of module it is (ESM vs. CommonJS) is a separate concern that is controlled by other options.

[not-my-profile]

Ah I see, thanks for elaborating! I guess I was confused by "type": "module" in package.json only referring to ES modules.

[not-my-profile]

Closing this since debugging node16 resolutions is probably rather an edge case and probably warrants dedicated tooling like @arethetypeswrong/cli.