@jstility/tship

✨ A smarter build tool that starts like tsc and grows with you. Enable dual-format output, automatic package.json exports, and a robust watch mode with just a few lines of configuration. ✨

• Features
• Installation
• Usage
• Documentation
• Support
• Contributing
• Authors and Acknowledgment
• License

# initialize tship in your project
npx tship init

# build for both CJS and ESM
npx tship build

# watch mode during development
npx tship watch

Features

TShip is built on top of the TypeScript compiler API and delivers:

• Dual-format output – produce CommonJS and ES modules from a single codebase (opt-in)
• Smart extension handling – automatically renames files when output directories collide, keeps standard extensions otherwise
• Auto-exports – updates package.json with conditional exports, main, module, types, and typesVersions for maximum ecosystem compatibility
• Robust watch mode – uses chokidar for reliable file watching (falls back to tsc --watch when not configured)
• Plugin system – hook into onPostEmit and onBuildEnd to extend the build pipeline
• Zero config – runs as standard tsc by default; advanced features are activated only when you add tship settings
• Fast – compiles each format in parallel using the TypeScript API

All features are configurable via tsconfig.json, a dedicated tship.config.ts, or CLI flags.

Installation

Install the package and its peer dependency typescript:

npm install -D @jstility/tship typescript

Add a tship section to your tsconfig.json or run the init command to create a standalone config file:

npx tship init

Minimal dual-format setup (shared output directory)

If your tsconfig.json already has outDir defined, you can enable dual-format output with a single line:

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "target": "ES2022",
    "outDir": "./dist",
    "rootDir": "./src",
    "strict": true,
    "declaration": true,
    "sourceMap": true
  },
  "tship": {
    "formats": ["cjs", "esm"]
  },
  "include": ["src/**/*.ts"]
}

Both formats will be written to ./dist and file extensions will be renamed to .cjs/.mjs automatically.

Separate output directories

If you prefer to keep the formats in different folders, specify outDirs:

{
  "compilerOptions": { ... },
  "tship": {
    "formats": ["cjs", "esm"],
    "outDirs": {
      "cjs": "./dist/cjs",
      "esm": "./dist/esm"
    },
    "autoExports": {
      "generate": true,
      "typesVersions": true
    }
  }
}

This will automatically populate main, module, types, exports, and typesVersions in your package.json.

Usage

Default behavior (no tship configuration)

If no tship property is present in tsconfig.json and no tship.config.ts exists, tship behaves exactly like tsc:

npx tship build

With tship enabled

Once you add formats (or any other tship option), the multi-format pipeline kicks in:

npx tship build

This will output:

✔ Build completed in 234ms
ℹ CJS → dist/cjs
ℹ ESM → dist/esm

Inside dist/cjs you'll find CommonJS files (require/exports) and inside dist/esm you'll find ES modules (import/export). Both folders contain declaration files (.d.ts), source maps, and declaration maps.

Watch your source files and rebuild automatically:

npx tship watch

Override the format or output directories via CLI:

npx tship build --formats cjs,esm --cjs-out dist/commonjs --esm-out dist/module

For a complete list of commands and options, run:

npx tship --help

Documentation

Full documentation is available at jstility.github.io/tship. You'll find guides on configuration, dual-format output, declaration files, auto-exports, watch mode, monorepo integration, and the plugin API.

Support

If you encounter any issues or have questions, please open an issue with a clear description and, if possible, a minimal reproducible example.

Contributing

Contributions are very welcome! Whether it's a bug report, feature request, or a pull request, please follow the guidelines in here. All contributions are appreciated.

Authors and Acknowledgment

@jstility/tship was created by Rangga Fajar Oktariansyah (@FajarKim) and is maintained by the JStility (@jstility) organization. It builds upon the excellent TypeScript compiler API and is inspired by tools like tsup and tsc.

License

This project is licensed under the Apache License 2.0.