Misleading error message when project arguments points to folder that lacks 'tsconfig.json'

[vladima]

create new folder with name '1', run compiler passing path to this folder as a value of 'project' argument.
Error message:

error TS5014: Failed to parse file '1/tsconfig.json': Unexpected token u.

[johnpapa]

+1 This happens with simple typos too.

For example, tsc -p -src or tsc -p .src/ when I meant tsc -p src. The typo is on us, but I propose that the error should say

No tsconfig.json is found at the specified folder .src/

[DanielRosenwasser]

👍 ran into this myself.