microsoft / microsoft/TypeScript

tsc not respecting types/typeRoots config for imported modules

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Description

Bug Report

Codebase is pulling in type declarations from the parent ../node_modules/@types/ folder, despite attempting to restrict the types and typeRoots to ignore it.

client/
  node_modules/@types/foo/ # server shouldn't ever see this!
  tsconfig.json
  
  server/
    node_modules/foo/ # server should see this as a module with no type declarations
    tsconfig.json
🔎 Search Terms
  • Stop typescript from including types from parent node_modules
  • Prevent typeRoots from using parent node_modules

Related Issues:

  • How to block typescript 2.0 from walking up all parent directories while resolving modules? #13992
  • Declarations are unexpectedly used from node_modules in parent directory #30124

The issue is very similar to the ones described above, but neither were resolved beyond saying that unwanted types could be excluded with "types": []. This only seems to work for excluding global types (e.g. @types/node) as far as I can tell, there is no way to prevent typescript pulling in types for a module that is explicitly imported. See repro for more context.

🕗 Version & Regression Information

We are seeing this problem with typescript@3.9.9, but I have created a reproduction that also confirms it on typescript@latest and typescript@next too.

  • This is the behavior in every version I tried, and I reviewed the FAQ for entries about excluding types and type roots.
💻 Code

Reproduced in repo with CI demonstrating incorrect behaviour here: https://github.com/danprince/typeroots-bug-repro

🙁 Actual behavior

The server codebase ends up including ../node_modules/@types/foo/index.d.ts as part of the compilation (through an import foo from "foo") even with "typeRoots": ["./node_modules/@types"] and "types": [].

Our current workaround is to remove the parent node_modules as part of our CI step.

We could also work around this by shadowing the declarations in the local node_modules/@types dir, or using paths hack to point typescript towards a non-existent version of the module, but it shouldn't be that hard.

All I want is to tell tsc is to never ever look in ../node_modules/@types.

🙂 Expected behavior

Never look in ../node_modules/@types for anything. I know that conflicts with the "moduleResolution": "node" to some degree, but it should be possible to configure that as far as type declarations are concerned.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start with the linked typeroots-bug-repro and its server and client tsconfig.json files, then run the reported tsc compilation to observe parent node_modules/@types resolution. Trace how moduleResolution interacts with typeRoots, types, and an explicit import of foo. Done means a supported configuration prevents the parent declarations from being selected while preserving the intended module resolution behavior.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
typescript
Domain
compilers
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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