Replace ts-node with tsx (#1623)

Co-authored-by: skuba <[email protected]>

.changeset/empty-cherries-admire.md

@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+---
+'skuba': major
+---
+
+node, start: Replace `ts-node` with `tsx`
+
+`skuba start` and `skuba node` now use `tsx` instead of `ts-node` for running TypeScript files. `tsx` has better ESM interoperability, like support for dynamic imports (`await import()`), than `ts-node`.
+
+There are some downsides for the REPL (which is what `skuba node` without any file is):
+
+- `import` statements in the REPL are not supported; `require` and `await import()` are still supported.
+- Pasting code into the REPL may not work as well as `ts-node`. If encountering issues, a workaround could be to use [`.editor`](https://nodejs.org/en/learn/command-line/how-to-use-the-nodejs-repl#dot-commands)
+
+Otherwise, `skuba start` and `skuba node <file>` _should_ work as expected. However, it is difficult to comprehensively test every scenario, so this has been released as a major version. It is recommended to test your use-cases of `skuba start` and `skuba node` after upgrading.

docs/cli/run.md

@@ -7,8 +7,7 @@ nav_order: 3
 
 ---
 
-**skuba** lets you interactively run your TypeScript source code during development.
-The following commands are powered by [`ts-node`] and [`ts-node-dev`].
+**skuba** lets you interactively run your TypeScript source code during development, powered by [`tsx`].
 
 These commands are only intended to serve local development and simple scripting scenarios,
 as a TypeScript process can present substantial overhead at runtime.
@@ -26,7 +25,7 @@ skuba node src/some-cli-script.ts
 # ...
 ```
 
-or launches a [`ts-node`] REPL if a file is not provided:
+or launches a [`tsx`] REPL if a file is not provided:
 
 ```shell
 skuba node src/some-cli-script.ts
@@ -217,9 +216,8 @@ Execution should pause on the breakpoint until we hit `F5` or the `▶️` butto
 
 [`skuba build`]: ./build.md
 [`skuba-dive/register`]: https://github.com/seek-oss/skuba-dive#register
-[`ts-node-dev`]: https://github.com/whitecolor/ts-node-dev
-[`ts-node`]: https://github.com/typestrong/ts-node
 [`tsconfig-paths`]: https://github.com/dividab/tsconfig-paths
+[`tsx`]: https://github.com/privatenumber/tsx
 [express]: https://expressjs.com/
 [fastify]: https://www.fastify.io/
 [http server]: https://nodejs.org/docs/latest-v20.x/api/http.html#class-httpserver

docs/deep-dives/esbuild.md

@@ -47,7 +47,7 @@ There are a couple of gotchas when evaluating alternative build tools like esbui
 
   esbuild is not fully compatible with all existing `tsc` configurations,
   may lag behind TypeScript in language features,
-  and lacks rich interoperability with tooling like Jest (via `ts-jest`) and `ts-node`.
+  and lacks rich interoperability with tooling like Jest (via `ts-jest`).
 
   These issues can be mostly contained within a centralised toolkit like skuba,
   but it makes it more difficult to duct tape tools together on an ad-hoc basis,

package.json

@@ -113,9 +113,9 @@
     "ts-dedent": "^2.2.0",
     "ts-jest": "^29.1.0",
     "ts-node": "^10.9.2",
-    "ts-node-dev": "^2.0.0",
     "tsconfig-paths": "^4.0.0",
     "tsconfig-seek": "2.0.0",
+    "tsx": "^4.16.2",
     "typescript": "~5.5.0",
     "validate-npm-package-name": "^5.0.0",
     "zod": "^3.22.4"