# wclr/ts-node-dev

Compiles your TS app and restarts when files are modified.

Repository: https://github.com/wclr/ts-node-dev
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/ts-node-dev
Language: TypeScript
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Archived: true
Last push: 2024-06-14T23:39:53+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 10/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3363, "days_push": 810, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: archived
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 3436, forks 120 (observed 2026-08-28T04:08:04.919631+00:00)

## What it is
A CLI development tool that runs TypeScript Node.js applications and automatically restarts them when files change, reusing the ts-node compilation process between restarts for speed. It is a tweaked version of node-dev built on top of ts-node.

## Use cases
- run a TypeScript express server with auto-restart on file changes
- speed up TypeScript dev loop compared to nodemon with ts-node
- watch and restart a node app written in TypeScript
- develop a TypeScript backend without a separate build step
- transpile-only fast reload for large TypeScript codebases

## When to choose
- you develop Node.js apps in TypeScript and want fast file-watch restarts
- nodemon + ts-node restarts are too slow for your codebase
- you want a simple dev runner without configuring a bundler

## When to avoid
- you need production builds or bundling - use tsc, esbuild, or tsup instead
- your project already uses a bundler dev server like Vite or webpack watch
- you work in JavaScript only - plain node-dev or nodemon suffices

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: maintenance
- function: developer-tools, build-tool, cli
- domain: developer-tools, web-development
- platform: cli, cross-platform
- tags: typescript, hot-reload, dev-server, watch-mode, ts-node, command-line, nodejs

## Member repositories
- wclr/ts-node-dev (main) score 10

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:04.919631+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T18:37:42.366588+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/wclr/ts-node-dev (fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:04.919631+00:00, sha b509095e5ccf)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.