tsserver doesn't work under git-bash on windows

[createthis]

🔎 Search Terms

git-bash tsserver

🕗 Version & Regression Information

• This is the behavior in every version I tried, and I reviewed the FAQ for entries about "path" and "git-bash".

⏯ Playground Link

No response

💻 Code

Fails on windows under git-bash:

(cat <<EOF
{"seq":1,"type":"request","command":"open","arguments":{"file":"/c/Users/me/Documents/dev/e2etests/tests/shared.ts"}}
{"seq":2,"type":"request","command":"semanticDiagnosticsSync","arguments":{"file":"/c/Users/me/Documents/dev/e2etests/tests/shared.ts"}}
EOF
) | ./node_modules/.bin/tsserver \
--logVerbosity verbose \
--logFile "/c/Users/me/Documents/dev/e2etests/tsserver.log"

Results in this log:

Info 11   [13:58:13.084] getConfigFileNameForFile:: File: /c/Users/me/Documents/dev/e2etests/tests/shared.ts ProjectRootPath: undefined:: Result: undefined
Info 12   [13:58:13.086] Creating InferredProject: /dev/null/inferredProject1*, currentDirectory: /c/Users/me/Documents/dev/e2etests/tests

Succeeds on windows under git-bash:

(cat <<EOF
{"seq":1,"type":"request","command":"open","arguments":{"file":"C:/Users/me/Documents/dev/e2etests/tests/shared.ts"}}
{"seq":2,"type":"request","command":"semanticDiagnosticsSync","arguments":{"file":"C:/Users/me/Documents/dev/e2etests/tests/shared.ts"}}
EOF
) | ./node_modules/.bin/tsserver \
--logVerbosity verbose \
--logFile "/c/Users/me/Documents/dev/e2etests/tsserver.log"

Results in this log:

Info 10   [15:33:22.225] getConfigFileNameForFile:: File: C:/Users/me/Documents/dev/e2etests/tests/shared.ts ProjectRootPath: undefined:: Result: C:/Users/me/Documents/dev/e2etests/tsconfig.json

🙁 Actual behavior

git-bash paths like /c/Users/me/Documents/dev/e2etests/tests/shared.ts cause tsserver to be unable to find tsconfig.json, resulting in an InferredProject, which causes super annoying errors like:

2580: Cannot find name 'process'. Do you need to install type definitions for node? Try `npm i --save-dev @types/node`.

When @types/node is clearly installed in node_modules.

🙂 Expected behavior

tsserver should be able to accept paths like /c/Users/me/Documents/dev/e2etests/tests/shared.ts under git-bash and find tsconfig.json successfully.

Additional information about the issue

My local instance of DeepSeek-V3-0324 - Larry and I spent hours debugging this today and crafting tsserver queries and logs for this issue. I hope it's useful. My brain is fried.

PS. All of this works fine on my Mac, of course. I'm guessing this is just a weird area where most people use VSCode on windows, but I'm a Mac guy so when my company said "thou shalt use windows" I'm trying to do weird stuff like code 100% in git-bash with vim.

[RyanCavanaugh]

I'm confused how git-bash has entered the picture here. Is the entry point that you launched VS Code from a git-bash terminal? Or changed the system / VS Code config in some way (how?)

[createthis]

I'm confused how git-bash has entered the picture here. Is the entry point that you launched VS Code from a git-bash terminal? Or changed the system / VS Code config in some way (how?)

No, I'm using vim and ALE. ALE is talking to tsserver and feeding it git-bash formatted paths.

[RyanCavanaugh]

and feeding it git-bash formatted paths.

That's an ALE bug, then. Paths must conform to the system they're running on; tsserver doesn't support nonstandard path formats

[createthis]

It's an integration issue. I'm honestly not sure if the ALE folks can fix it either since ALE probably has no knowledge of git-bash to regular windows path conversions. Making cross platform typescript and node code is always a pain. Here's a bug for ALE since I'm just throwing things at the wall hoping they stick: dense-analysis/ale#4950

[createthis]

Here's a wrapper script for tsserver, written by o4-mini, that solves the problem on my end, albeit in a hacky way:

First, make a backup of the tsserver symlink/copy/whatever:

mv node_modules/.bin/tsserver node_modules/.bin/tsserver.bak

Next, vim node_modules/.bin/tsserver and create the wrapper:
node_modules/.bin/tsserver

#!/usr/bin/env node
const enableLogging = false;  // set to false to disable logging
const { spawn } = require('child_process');
const fs = require('fs');
const rl = require('readline').createInterface({ input: process.stdin });
const log = enableLogging
  ? fs.createWriteStream('tswrapper.log',{flags:'a'})
  : null;

const ts = spawn(process.execPath, [
  require.resolve('../typescript/lib/tsserver.js'),
  /*'--logVerbosity','verbose','--logFile','tsserver.log'*/
], { stdio:['pipe','pipe','inherit'] });

rl.on('line', l => {
  if (enableLogging) log.write(`IN:  ${l}\n`);
  const m = l.replace(/"\/([A-Za-z])\//g, (_,d)=>`"${d.toUpperCase()}:/`);
  if (enableLogging) log.write(`MOD: ${m}\n`);
  ts.stdin.write(m+'\n');
});

ts.stdout.on('data', buf => {
  const text = buf.toString();
  if (enableLogging) log.write(`OUT-RAW: ${text}`);
  const rev = text.replace(/"([A-Za-z]):\/([^"]*)"/g,(_,d,p)=>`"/${d.toLowerCase()}/${p}"`);
  if (enableLogging) log.write(`OUT-MOD: ${rev}`);
  process.stdout.write(rev);
});

rl.on('close', () => {
  ts.stdin.end();
  if (enableLogging) log.end();
});

Finally, make sure it's executable:

chmod 700 node_modules/.bin/tsserver

This wrapper is just a man-in-the-middle attack that takes all input and rewrites /c/blah to C:/blah, then streams it to ../typescript/lib/tsserver.js. All output from ../typescript/lib/tsserver.js is similarly rewritten from C:/blah to /c/blah before being streamed to stdout.

If enableLogging is set to true you get a nice detailed transcript of the conversation, including changes.

This works well on my windows git-bash system. It's just a little annoying to set up because it has to be done every time npm overwrites tsserver and for each repo. HTH someone.

[typescript-bot]

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