Babel Node + Typescript minus TS Node

If you want to use typescript with babel-node, here is how you do it:

install dependencies

npm i -D @babel/core @babel/node @babel/preset-env @babel/preset-typescript typescript

setup npm script

"scripts": {
  "start": "babel-node -x .ts -- src/app.ts",
}

create a babel.config.js

module.exports = {
    presets: [
        '@babel/preset-typescript',
        [
            '@babel/preset-env',
            {
                targets: {
                    node: 'current',
                },
            },
        ],
    ],
}

create a src/app.ts, in this example I use koa

import Koa from 'koa'
const app = new Koa()
// response
app.use(ctx => {
    ctx.body = 'Hello Koa'
})
app.listen(3000)

finally npm start and boom, it just works.

This solution comes in handy when you are tight on memory and you want to avoid ts-node