Always verify import path

In many projects is necessary work with files which isn't a TS/JS file. Some common ones are png, jpg, svg, but when importing this files we get Cannot find module or its corresponding type declarations. error.

Searching how to fix that, we come across many discussions suggesting using the global module declaration, such as:

declare module '*.svg' {
  const content: string
  export default content
}

Links

• Importing images in TypeScript React - “Cannot find module”
• Webpack & Typescript image import
• Typescript image import
• TypeScript "Cannot find module './myFile..." for .scss, .less, images files, wasm...
• Importing SVG files as React Components in TypeScript
  

This approach fix the lint error, but disable TS intellisense.

Example

Folder structure

app
 |
 ├ img
 |  └─ top-view.svg
 |
 └─index.ts

index.ts

No errors, but the correct path is ../img/top-view.svg

Here is the related issue #40333

Suggestion

Compiler could still returning missing type declarations for not TS/JS files. But always check if import path results in a file and return an error if not (even if file is not an TS/JS).

Start by reading related issue #40333 and the examples in this report, then investigate TypeScript's import-path resolution behavior for non-TS/JS files. Done means the proposed missing-file diagnostic behavior is defined and implemented without losing support for declared non-code modules.