tsconfig.json option removeComments removes comments from both declaration.d.ts and source .js files, it would be convenient to only remove comments from .js files.

[wandyezj]

Suggestion

The TypeScript tsconfig.json removeComments removes all comments from both declaration and source files. It would be convenient to be able to specify removeCommentsFromDeclaration (.d.ts) and removeCommentsFromModule (.js) independently.

🔍 Search Terms

removeComments

✅ Viability Checklist

My suggestion meets these guidelines:

• This wouldn't be a breaking change in existing TypeScript/JavaScript code
• This wouldn't change the runtime behavior of existing JavaScript code
• This could be implemented without emitting different JS based on the types of the expressions
• This isn't a runtime feature (e.g. library functionality, non-ECMAScript syntax with JavaScript output, new syntax sugar for JS, etc.)
• This feature would agree with the rest of TypeScript's Design Goals.

⭐ Suggestion

Source .js files are used directly when importing packages and do not need comments as these can contribute to the size.

It is often undesirable to show off internal comments, especially when developing external libraries.

Declaration .d.ts files are used for IntelliSense and it is usually desired for them to have comments, api-extractor uses generated declarations for documentation extraction.

While there are work arounds, they require running additional commands instead of getting everything in one go.

Provide removeCommentsFromDeclaration (.d.ts) and removeCommentsFromModule (.js) options alongside the existing removeComments OR allow removeComments to be overloaded to have ["declaration", "module"] to specify the specific comments to remove.

📃 Motivating Example

Remove comments from .js to:

• reduce size of the package when uploaded to NPM and downloaded from NPM
• reduce size of packages on disk
• reduce size of imports without post processing
• hide internal package comments from external developers

💻 Use Cases

The workaround is to have the .d.ts and .js be potentially out of sync by running two separate commands to generate the .d.ts and .js files.

[AviVahl]

Related:
#38427
#14619

[wandyezj]

I'm happy to contribute this piece of code, since I find this issue particularly inconvenient. Reading though the related, is there a specific design that the TypeScript team already has in mind?