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vite-tsconfig-paths

Give vite the ability to resolve imports using TypeScript's path mapping.

[!NOTE] New in v6 – On-demand tsconfig discovery with projectDiscovery: "lazy", automatic tsconfig reloads (including vite build --watch), support for “absolute path” aliases, and a new logFile option for detailed resolution traces. See the Releases page for the full changelog.

Install

pnpm add -D vite-tsconfig-paths

npm install --save-dev vite-tsconfig-paths

yarn add -D vite-tsconfig-paths

Setup

1. Ensure the project either has "type": "module" set or that the Vite config is renamed to vite.config.mjs / vite.config.mts depending on whether TypeScript is used

2. Inject vite-tsconfig-paths in the Vite config

   import { defineConfig } from 'vite'
   import tsconfigPaths from 'vite-tsconfig-paths'
   
   export default defineConfig({
     plugins: [tsconfigPaths()],
   })

⚠️ CSS imports are not supported.

Due to a Vite limitation, CSS files (and CSS dialects) cannot be resolved with this plugin.

This is being tracked in #30.

⚠️ Non-TypeScript modules need special configuration.

To enable path resolution in non-TypeScript modules (e.g. .vue, .svelte, .mdx), you must set the allowJs option to true in your tsconfig.json file.

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "allowJs": true
  }
}

Alternative: If you prefer to avoid allowJs or it didn't help, passing loose: true to the plugin constructor should work.

tsconfigPaths({ loose: true })

TSConfigs are watched in v6.

tsconfig/jsconfig files are reloaded automatically in both eager and lazy discovery modes, and even during vite build --watch. If you spot a case where changes are missed, please open an issue.

Plugin Options

You pass these options when calling the plugin constructor in your Vite config.

[!WARNING] You should try using the plugin without any of these options, and only set them when you know you need them.

import { defineConfig } from 'vite'
import tsconfigPaths from 'vite-tsconfig-paths'

export default defineConfig({
  plugins: [tsconfigPaths({ /* options go here */ })],
})

projectDiscovery: "eager" | "lazy" (v6+)

Control how tsconfig files are discovered and loaded. By default, "eager" is used, which means your Vite project is scanned for tsconfig files when the plugin is initialized, and never again after that. The root option only works in eager mode.

When "lazy" is used, tsconfig files are only scanned when an import is encountered in a module with a supported file extension that exists in the same directory as the tsconfig.json file (or one of its subdirectories). In other words, importers with a tsconfig.json or jsconfig.json file in one of their parent directories will have their imports resolved by this plugin.

root: string

The directory to search for tsconfig.json files.

The default value of this option depends on whether projects is defined. If it is, then the Vite project root is used. Otherwise, Vite's searchForWorkspaceRoot function is used.

projects: string[]

If you have an esoteric setup, you might need this option to specify where your tsconfig files are located. The paths within are relative to the root option.

If defined, the root directory won't be searched for tsconfig files. You should always try using just the root option first, because this option is more brittle.

loose: boolean

Disable strictness that limits path resolution to TypeScript and JavaScript importers. In other words, when loose: true is used, any file that gets transpiled into JavaScript will have its imports resolved by this plugin.

For example, this is useful if you want imports in Vue templates to be resolved, but don't want to use allowJs in your tsconfig.

parseNative: boolean

Enable use of the tsconfck.parseNative function, which delegates the loading of tsconfig files to the TypeScript compiler. You'll probably never need this, but I added it just in case.

[!WARNING] This option can slow down Vite's startup time by as much as 600ms, due to the size of the TypeScript compiler. Only use it when necessary.

ignoreConfigErrors: boolean

When true, parsing errors encountered while loading tsconfig files will be ignored.

This is useful if you have a monorepo with multiple tsconfig files, and you don't want to see errors for the ones that aren't relevant to the current project.

logFile: string | boolean (v6+)

Write detailed resolution logs to a file. Pass true to write to vite-tsconfig-paths.log in the working directory, or pass a custom path. Every import the plugin sees is logged along with why it was resolved or skipped—useful when DEBUG=vite-tsconfig-paths output isn't enough.

skip: (dir: string) => boolean

A function that determines which directories to skip when searching for tsconfig.json files.

While .git and node_modules directories are always skipped, this option allows you to skip additional directories, which is useful in large monorepos to improve performance.

TSConfig Options

allowJs

If your tsconfig file has "allowJs": true in it, path resolution will be expanded beyond TypeScript importers. The following extensions will have their imports resolved by this plugin: .astro, .vue, .svelte, .mdx, .mjs, .js, .jsx

If you believe another file extension should be supported by default, please open an issue or pull request.

baseUrl

If the baseUrl is defined, it gets prepended to all bare imports, and its resolution will take precedence over node_modules. This is also how TypeScript does it.

Say the baseUrl is ../root and you import react. This plugin will use ../root/react if it exists. If not found, then react is resolved normally. The baseUrl is relative to the project root (where tsconfig.json lives).

include/exclude

The include and exclude tsconfig options are respected.

Internally, globrex is used for glob matching.

Troubleshooting

The DEBUG environment variable can be used to figure out why this plugin isn't working as you may have expected.

DEBUG=vite-tsconfig-paths yarn vite

Alternatively, set logFile: true to capture a full resolution trace in vite-tsconfig-paths.log.

Also, check out the Troubleshooting wiki page for more guidance.

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