Provide way to configure default compiler options for TS Server Inferred Project

[alan-agius4]

Search Terms

Inferred Project
TS Server

Suggestion

Add an option to configure the default compilerOptions for inferred projects outside of the host.

Related to: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eB6cGCG_2ircfS5GzpDC9dBgikeYYcMxghVH5sDESHw/edit#heading=h.telvo0tzo7t0 and #39632

Checklist

Use Cases

Currently, there is no way to configure the default compilerOptions for inferred projects outside of the server host. Being able to configure should options would be give a better DX when not using the default compiler options such as experimentalDecorators, strictNullChecks etc... together with stricter file inclusions, ie favoring explicitly listing the entry-point files using files instead of include with globbing.

Previously when not using TypeScript solution style tsconfig this could be achieved by adding a tsconfig.json in the root of the project which will include all files and set these options example.

{
   "compilerOptions":  {
     "experimentalDecorators": true,
     "strictNullChecks": true,
     ...
   }
}

This trickery cannot be used when using a solution style tsconfig, because the root tsconfig will not contain any files due to files: [] setting.

Examples

Ideally, compiler options for inferred projects are configured in a TypeScript configuration file. When using solution style tsconfig, such configuration can be set here.

{
 "files": [],
 "compilerOptions":  {
   "experimentalDecorators": true,
   "strictNullChecks": true,
   ...
 },
 "references": [
   {
     "path": "./tsconfig.app.json"
   },
   {
     "path": "./tsconfig.spec.json"
   }
 ]
}

My suggestion meets these guidelines:

• This wouldn't be a breaking change in existing TypeScript/JavaScript code
• This wouldn't change the runtime behavior of existing JavaScript code
• This could be implemented without emitting different JS based on the types of the expressions
• This isn't a runtime feature (e.g. library functionality, non-ECMAScript syntax with JavaScript output, etc.)
• This feature would agree with the rest of TypeScript's Design Goals.

//cc @kyliau

[RyanCavanaugh]

@mjbvz does VS Code support anything like this?

[mjbvz]

VS Code has two settings for implicit javascript projects: javascript.implicitProjectConfig.checkJs and javascript.implicitProjectConfig.experimentalDecorators

I'd be up for adding VS Code support for additional options. These settings are especially useful for JS users who don't know about jsconfig (or don't want to check one in)

[MichaelMitchell-at]

This would be really useful in our monorepo, where open files that don't have an explicit project will likely end up causing all files to be processed and tsserver memory usage to explode to 40GB. For us in general, if a file is not explicitly part of a TS project, it's usually just in a transient state where we haven't created the tsconfig file yet, which we autogenerate.