npm-dts

by Vytenis Urbonavičius

This utility generates single index.d.ts file for whole NPM package.

It allows creating bundled NPM library packages without TypeScript sources and yet still keeping code suggestions wherever these libraries are imported.

TypeScript picks up index.d.ts automatically.

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Some useful forks:

• @htho/npm-dts by Hauke Thorenz - custom alias functionality (--customAlias), tree shaking (--shake)

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Installation

Local:

npm install --save-dev npm-dts

Global:

npm install -g npm-dts

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CLI Usage

Please make sure that target project has "typescript" installed in node_modules.

To see full CLI help - run without arguments:

npm-dts

Typical usage (using global install):

cd /your/project
npm-dts generate

Supported options

npm-dts [options] generate

Option	Alias	Description
--entry [file]	-e [file]	Allows changing main src file from index.ts to something else. It can also be declared as a path, relative to rootDir of TSC. Note that if rootDir is not specified in tsconfig.json and all TS source code is under some sub-directory such as "src" - TSC might auto-magically set rootDir to "src".
--force	-f	Ignores non-critical errors and attempts to at least partially generate typings (disabled by default).
--help	-h	Output usage information.
--logLevel [level]	-L [level]	Log level (error, warn, info, verbose, debug) (defaults to "info").
--output [file]	-o [file]	Overrides recommended output target to a custom one (defaults to "index.d.ts").
--root [path]	-r [path]	NPM package directory containing package.json (defaults to current working directory).
--tmp [path]	-t [path]	Directory for storing temporary information (defaults to OS-specific temporary directory). Note that tool completely deletes this folder once finished.
--tsc [options]	-c [options]	Passed through additional TSC options (defaults to ""). Note that they are not validated or checked for suitability. When passing through CLI it is recommended to surround arguments in quotes and start with a space (work-around for a bug in argument parsing dependency of npm-dts).
--version	-v	Output the version number.

Integration using WebPack

You would want to use "npm-dts-webpack-plugin" package instead.

Integration into NPM scripts

Example of how you could run generation of index.d.ts automatically before every publish.

{
  // ......
  "scripts": {
    "prepublishOnly": "npm run dts && ......",
    "dts": "./node_modules/.bin/npm-dts generate"
  }
  // ......
}

Another possible option would be to execute "npm run dts" as part of bundling task.

Integration into custom solution

This approach can be used for integration with tools such as WebPack.

Simple usage with all default values:

import {Generator} from 'npm-dts'
new Generator({}).generate()

Advanced usage example with some arguments overridden:

import * as path from 'path'
import {Generator} from 'npm-dts'

new Generator({
  entry: 'main.ts',
  root: path.resolve(process.cwd(), 'project'),
  tmp: path.resolve(process.cwd(), 'cache/tmp'),
  tsc: '--extendedDiagnostics',
}).generate()

Above examples were in TypeScript. Same in plain JavaScript would look like this:

const path = require('path')

new (require('npm-dts').Generator)({
  entry: 'main.ts',
  root: path.resolve(process.cwd(), 'project'),
  tmp: path.resolve(process.cwd(), 'cache/tmp'),
  tsc: '--extendedDiagnostics',
}).generate()

Additional arguments

Constructor of generator also supports two more boolean flags as optional arguments:

• Enable log
• Throw exception on error

Initializing without any options will cause npm-cli to read CLI arguments all by itself.