/typescript-boilerplate

A modern TypeScript project setup, for Node.js and browsers (using esbuild).

Primary LanguageTypeScriptMIT LicenseMIT

TypeScript Boilerplate for 2021

Build and test status

TypeScript project boilerplate with modern tooling, for Node.js programs, libraries and browser modules. Get started quickly and right-footed 🚀

See also the introduction blog post: Starting a TypeScript Project in 2021.

Getting Started

# Clone the repository (you can also click "Use this template")
git clone https://github.com/metachris/typescript-boilerplate.git your_project_name
cd your_project_name

# Edit `package.json` and `tsconfig.json` to your liking
...

# Install dependencies
yarn install

# Now you can run various yarn commands:
yarn cli
yarn lint
yarn test
yarn build-all
yarn ts-node <filename>
yarn esbuild-browser
...
  • Take a look at all the scripts in package.json
  • For publishing to npm, use yarn publish (or npm publish)

esbuild

esbuild is an extremely fast bundler that supports a large part of the TypeScript syntax. This project uses it to bundle for browsers (and Node.js if you want).

# Build for browsers
yarn esbuild-browser:dev
yarn esbuild-browser:watch

# Build the cli for node
yarn esbuild-node:dev
yarn esbuild-node:watch

You can generate a full clean build with yarn build-all (which uses both tsc and esbuild).

  • package.json includes scripts for various esbuild commands: see here
  • esbuild has a --global-name=xyz flag, to store the exports from the entry point in a global variable. See also the esbuild "Global name" docs.
  • Read more about the esbuild setup here.
  • esbuild for the browser uses the IIFE (immediately-invoked function expression) format, which executes the bundled code on load (see also evanw/esbuild#29)

Tests with Jest

You can write Jest tests like this:

import { greet } from './main'

test('the data is peanut butter', () => {
  expect(1).toBe(1)
});

test('greeting', () => {
  expect(greet('Foo')).toBe('Hello Foo')
});

Run the tests with yarn test, no separate compile step is necessary.

Documentation, published with CI

You can auto-generate API documentation from the TyoeScript source files using TypeDoc. The generated documentation can be published to GitHub / GitLab pages through the CI.

Generate the documentation, using src/main.ts as entrypoint (configured in package.json):

yarn docs

The resulting HTML is saved in docs/.

You can publish the documentation through CI:

This is the documentation for this boilerplate project: https://metachris.github.io/typescript-boilerplate/

References

Feedback

Reach out with feedback and ideas: