microsoft / microsoft/TypeScript

Declaration emit spends significant CPU in getAliasForSymbolInContainer / getAlternativeContainingModules

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Description

### Summary

While running `tsgo -b -f` on a large private project, declaration emit spends a significant amount of CPU time in symbol accessibility logic, especially `getAlternativeContainingModules` and `getAliasForSymbolInContainer`.

The project source cannot be shared, but I can provide sanitized pprof output and/or raw Go pprof profiles after checking that they do not contain private TypeScript source contents.

### Environment

- typescript-go commit: `804eb7a1a1a9b0722af207412921cc025dfbbd5a`
- tsgo version: `7.0.0-dev`
- Go version: `go1.26.0 linux/amd64`
- OS: Linux amd64
- Command shape: `./built/local/tsgo -b -f`

### Observed performance

Using `/usr/bin/time -v`:

```text
Elapsed wall time: 43.40s
User time: 196.33s
System time: 10.24s
CPU: 475%
Maximum resident set size: 4,264,424 KB
```

### CPU profile highlights

Profile command:
```
./built/local/tsgo -b -f --pprofDir
go tool pprof -top ./built/local/tsgo /-cpuprofile.pb.gz
go tool pprof -top -cum ./built/local/tsgo /-cpuprofile.pb.gz
```

Relevant excerpt:
```
Duration: 43.09s
Total samples: 208.55s

flat flat% cum cum%
3.00s 1.44% 42.62s 20.44% github.com/microsoft/typescript-go/internal/checker.(*Checker).getAlternativeContainingModules
1.36s 0.65% 37.27s 17.87% github.com/microsoft/typescript-go/internal/checker.(*Checker).getAliasForSymbolInContainer
0.15s 0.07% 21.60s 10.36% github.com/microsoft/typescript-go/internal/checker.(*Checker).getSymbolIfSameReference
0.26s 0.12% 12.96s 6.21% github.com/microsoft/typescript-go/internal/checker.(*Checker).resolveSymbolEx
7.99s 3.83% 7.99s 3.83% github.com/microsoft/typescript-go/internal/ast.IsNonLocalAlias
```

The cumulative profile suggests declaration emit repeatedly checks whether a symbol is accessible through alternative containing modules, and repeatedly scans exports in getAliasForSymbolInContainer.

### Allocation profile highlights

```
Total allocated: ~19.68GB
Maximum RSS from /usr/bin/time: ~4.26GB
```

### Local experiment

I tested a conservative local prototype that caches, per checker/container, the export candidates grouped by the same resolved/merged target symbol. It does not cache the final selected alias directly; it still sorts only the candidates for the currently queried target, to preserve the old selection behavior as closely as possible.

On the same private project:

```
Before: 43.40s wall, 4,264,424 KB max RSS
After: 37.64s wall, 4,210,296 KB max RSS
```

That is about a 13% wall time improvement on this workload.

Relevant tests passed locally:

```
GOCACHE=/tmp/tsgo-go-cache go test ./internal/checker
```

### Question

Would a per-container cache for alias candidates in getAliasForSymbolInContainer, or another cache around this symbol accessibility path, be acceptable? I am happy to share sanitized pprof text output, and possibly raw .pb.gz pprof files if that is useful.

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 in internal/checker with getAliasForSymbolInContainer and getAlternativeContainingModules, then review the supplied pprof commands and candidate-cache experiment. Run GOCACHE=/tmp/tsgo-go-cache go test ./internal/checker; done means preserving alias-selection behavior while reducing the reported CPU and allocation cost.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
go, typescript
Domain
compilers, performance
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
48/100

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