tsgo resolves inherited include/exclude globs differently than tsc when using extends

[mabels]

Versions

• tsc: 5.9.3
• tsgo (@typescript/native-preview): 7.0.0-dev.20260206.1

Description

When a child tsconfig.json uses "extends" to inherit from a parent, and the parent defines include globs, tsc and tsgo produce completely different output directory structures because they resolve the inherited include paths differently.

Note: This is a regression — this was working correctly with tsgo a few weeks ago.

Setup

monorepo-root/
├── tsconfig.json          # parent config
├── call-ai/...
├── prompts/...
├── use-vibes/...
└── vibes.diy/pkg/
    └── tsconfig.json      # child config (extends ../../tsconfig.json)

Parent tsconfig.json (at root):

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "target": "es2022",
    "module": "nodenext",
    "moduleResolution": "nodenext",
    "outDir": "./dist",
    "noEmit": true,
    "sourceMap": true
  },
  "include": [
    "call-ai/**/*",
    "use-vibes/**/*",
    "vibes.diy/**/*",
    "prompts/**/*"
  ]
}

Child tsconfig.json (at vibes.diy/pkg/):

{
  "extends": "../../tsconfig.json",
  "compilerOptions": {
    "outDir": "./dist",
    "sourceMap": true,
    "noEmit": false
  }
}

Steps to reproduce

From vibes.diy/pkg/:

rm -rf dist && pnpm exec tsc 2>/dev/null; ls dist/
# Output: call-ai  prompts  use-vibes  vibes.diy

rm -rf dist && pnpm exec tsgo 2>/dev/null; ls dist/
# Output: app  drizzle.d1-local-backend.config.js  ...  stories  workers

Expected behavior

tsgo should produce the same output directory structure as tsc — resolving inherited include globs relative to the parent config's directory (monorepo root), producing dist/{call-ai,prompts,use-vibes,vibes.diy}.

Actual behavior

tsc resolves the inherited include globs relative to the parent config's directory (monorepo root), producing dist/{call-ai,prompts,use-vibes,vibes.diy}.

tsgo appears to resolve them relative to the child config's directory (vibes.diy/pkg/), producing a flat structure with only local files (app/, stories/, workers/, config files).

[jakebailey]

Includes/excludes/files are not inherited, only compilerOptions are.

The only reason your code could have been working before was due to the default behavior of including everything below a config.

I think your issue is actually that your rootDir was being inferred, but #2521 / microsoft/TypeScript#62418 for microsoft/TypeScript#62194 means that your inferred root changed to the config dir. You should see the same behavior change if you test TS 6.0.

If you set "rootDir": "./app", that should fix your problem.

(That being said, there might be some interplay here with that random config file, but we'd need a real repro)

[jakebailey]

(though I don't know where "app" is in your example; this is why a repro we can test is helpful)

[mabels]

I'm not sure how to answer—there is no app in a specific directory.
It definitly not a nice to point you to the big app, but it might help you to answer your question:
https://github.com/VibesDIY/vibes.diy/tree/mabels/vibes-diy-api

[jakebailey]

Any repro is helpful. https://github.com/VibesDIY/vibes.diy/tree/mabels/vibes-diy-api/vibes.diy/pkg is the dir with the config (to save clicks later).

This is still the thing I'm describing, I just didn't notice the other dirs after drizzle.d1-local-backend.config.js in your example, sorry.

I think you want "rootDir": "../../".

That being said, it's interesting that this ever worked before. Since includes are not inherited, I would have expected this to have always included only files within the pkg directory, not a parent.

[mabels]

so i run it again:

$ pwd ; rm -rf dist && pnpm exec tsc 2>/dev/null > /dev/null; ls -l dist/  
.../vibes.diy/pkg
total 0
drwxr-xr-x@ 5  staff  160 Feb  6 19:31 call-ai
drwxr-xr-x@ 4  staff  128 Feb  6 19:31 prompts
drwxr-xr-x@ 6  staff  192 Feb  6 19:31 use-vibes
drwxr-xr-x@ 5  staff  160 Feb  6 19:31 vibes.diy

$  pwd ; rm -rf dist && pnpm exec tsgo 2>/dev/null > /dev/null; ls -l dist/
.../vibes.diy/pkg
total 64
drwxr-xr-x@ 21  staff   672 Feb  6 19:31 app
-rw-r--r--@  1  staff   888 Feb  6 19:31 drizzle.d1-local-backend.config.js
-rw-r--r--@  1  staff   985 Feb  6 19:31 drizzle.d1-local-backend.config.js.map
-rw-r--r--@  1  staff  2054 Feb  6 19:31 drizzle.d1-remote.config.js
-rw-r--r--@  1  staff  2113 Feb  6 19:31 drizzle.d1-remote.config.js.map
-rw-r--r--@  1  staff   192 Feb  6 19:31 react-router.config.js
-rw-r--r--@  1  staff   261 Feb  6 19:31 react-router.config.js.map
drwxr-xr-x@ 22  staff   704 Feb  6 19:31 stories
-rw-r--r--@  1  staff  1321 Feb  6 19:31 vite.config.js
-rw-r--r--@  1  staff  1154 Feb  6 19:31 vite.config.js.map
drwxr-xr-x@  8  staff   256 Feb  6 19:31 workers

BTW the tsgo basically spread every where in the monorepo .js,.js.map files --- thats how i discovered this mishap.

[Knagis]

@jakebailey from https://www.typescriptlang.org/tsconfig/#extends

It’s worth noting that files, include, and exclude from the inheriting config file overwrite those from the base config file, and that circularity between configuration files is not allowed.

Currently, the only top-level property that is excluded from inheritance is references.

This contradicts your statement from #2699 (comment)

Code: https://github.com/microsoft/TypeScript/blob/87aa917befa8f6182f5535df3c77287209692a04/src/compiler/commandLineParser.ts#L3475-L3477

[jakebailey]

Fun, behavior I didn't realize was there.

I think there are multiple bugs happening in your case; the error message not appearing about rootDir (potentially), and whatever this includes related problem is. Probably a combo of both.

[jakebailey]

We should have this already, though:

typescript-go/internal/tsoptions/tsconfigparsing.go

Lines 1086 to 1088 in ffa96d5

	setPropertyValue("include")
	setPropertyValue("exclude")
	setPropertyValue("files")

[jakebailey]

In any case, resetting this conversation, someone just needs to investigate what's going on here. Sorry for the false start.

[jakebailey]

I tried using your repo to reproduce things, but with the TS 6.0 nightly (I did not check 5.9), you have a load of errors that make it hard to know if something else is wrong, especially those about imports starting with ~/. It would be helpful if you had a more minimal example (or one that compiled cleanly with TS 6.0).

[jakebailey]

With what I could figure out in the repo, though, setting an explicit rootDir resulted in the same emit between 6.0 and tsgo, so, I'm not sure what I'm testing differently than you.

[mabels]

With what I could figure out in the repo, though, setting an explicit rootDir resulted in the same emit between 6.0 and tsgo, so, I'm not sure what I'm testing differently than you.

Hi, thanks for retrying—so the errors are not nice but unrelated; it's only about the emitted files, especially those that are scattered around the whole repo.

And I'm comparing the output(emitted) of 5.9.x and tsgo, and 5.9.x behaves as I thought(puts everything into dist), and tsgo started to misbehave in the last 8 weeks sometimes.

I read that with the rootDir, in which tsconfig, you set rootDir? I want to have different things emitted in that repo.
Usually, if I want to emit something, I want to turn it on explicitly and then put some package dir into ./dist/(local dir content) ---- but in the case of vibes.diy/pkg I want to have the whole repo emitted into dist//.....

Lucky I now solved that difference, which makes this mismatch between tsc 5.9.x and tsgo no longer relevant for me ---

But if there is a difference between 5.9.x and tsgo, this might be one of them. And it's up to you to decide if this is to fix in the code or just a documentation issue.

Due to it being a working target I gave you before I prepared a branch(without errors) to reproduce it:

https://github.com/VibesDIY/vibes.diy/tree/mabels/tsgo-vs-tsc

and it has a new target in the toplevel

$ pnpm run debug-ts

which:

pnpm run debug-ts

> .../vibes.diy-main
> cd vibes.diy/pkg ; pnpm run debug-ts


> .../vibes.diy/pkg
> FP_TSC=tsc pnpm run build ; FP_TSC=tsgo pnpm run build


> .../vibes.diy/pkg
> rm -rf dist ; core-cli tsc; ls -l dist

Using typescript: tsc on UnixShell
total 0
drwxr-xr-x@ 5  staff  160 Feb 15 09:00 call-ai
drwxr-xr-x@ 4  staff  128 Feb 15 09:00 prompts
drwxr-xr-x@ 6  staff  192 Feb 15 09:00 use-vibes
drwxr-xr-x@ 5  staff  160 Feb 15 09:00 vibes.diy

> .../vibes.diy/pkg
> rm -rf dist ; core-cli tsc; ls -l dist

Using typescript: tsgo on UnixShell
total 64
drwxr-xr-x@ 21  staff   672 Feb 15 09:00 app
-rw-r--r--@  1  staff   888 Feb 15 09:00 drizzle.d1-local-backend.config.js
-rw-r--r--@  1  staff   985 Feb 15 09:00 drizzle.d1-local-backend.config.js.map
-rw-r--r--@  1  staff  2054 Feb 15 09:00 drizzle.d1-remote.config.js
-rw-r--r--@  1  staff  2113 Feb 15 09:00 drizzle.d1-remote.config.js.map
-rw-r--r--@  1  staff   192 Feb 15 09:00 react-router.config.js
-rw-r--r--@  1  staff   261 Feb 15 09:00 react-router.config.js.map
drwxr-xr-x@ 22  staff   704 Feb 15 09:00 stories
-rw-r--r--@  1  staff  1321 Feb 15 09:00 vite.config.js
-rw-r--r--@  1  staff  1154 Feb 15 09:00 vite.config.js.map
drwxr-xr-x@  8  staff   256 Feb 15 09:00 workers

[jakebailey]

Can you please test 6.0 nightly? We are not trying to match 5.9 behavior.

[mabels]

Can you please test 6.0 nightly? We are not trying to match 5.9 behavior.

I just did beside alot of these:

error TS6059: File '.../vibes.diy/tests/simple-chat/vitest.config.ts' is not under 'rootDir' '.../vibes.diy/pkg'. 'rootDir' is expected to contain all source files.
  The file is in the program because:
    Matched by include pattern '../../vibes.diy/**/*' in '/.../vibes.diy/pkg/tsconfig.json'
  File is ECMAScript module because '.../vibes.diy/tests/simple-chat/package.json' has field "type" with value "module"

There is no difference between 6 and 7 --- it's only between 5.9.x and 6 and 7:

So we should close this here?