Change the behavior of `tsc` on a tsconfig solution

🔍 Search Terms

The Vite starters now use a "solution" tsconfig, as documented in the docs.

The issue is that a lot of people are used to run tsc or tsc --noEmit at the root of the project, and now, this silently does nothing.

✅ Viability Checklist

• This wouldn't be a breaking change in existing TypeScript/JavaScript code
• This wouldn't change the runtime behavior of existing JavaScript code
• This could be implemented without emitting different JS based on the types of the expressions
• This isn't a runtime feature (e.g. library functionality, non-ECMAScript syntax with JavaScript output, new syntax sugar for JS, etc.)
• This isn't a request to add a new utility type: https://github.com/microsoft/TypeScript/wiki/No-New-Utility-Types
• This feature would agree with the rest of our Design Goals: https://github.com/Microsoft/TypeScript/wiki/TypeScript-Design-Goals

⭐ Suggestion

I think in that specific case, it should do one of those two things:

• make it an error in that case with "You probably want tsc -b"
• default to build mode (when the tsconfig contains files: [])

📃 Motivating Example

You have three chars less to type? 😅

More seriously, it's about making project references more used without a familiar command becoming useless

💻 Use Cases

2. What shortcomings exist with current approaches?

We get some reports like this: https://github.com/vitejs/vite/issues/17585

I suspect a lot more people fall for this, but find the issue before opening an issue

Start by reading the two proposed behaviors for running tsc or tsc --noEmit against a solution tsconfig, then review the linked Vite issue 17585. Done means choosing and implementing a clear non-silent root-project behavior that supports the project-reference use case.