Astro Express Middleware

I'm trying to run astro SSR as an express middleware using typescript.

What works

Run npm i to install packages.

Run npm run build to build the astro .mjs express middleware module.

Run npm run start to use ts-node to transpile and run /server.ts.

Where I'm stuck

I want to fully separate build-time from run-time.

I would like to run something like tsc server.ts to transpile the whole express server into javascript code at build time.

I would then like to run node dist/server.js to run without having to compile typescript at startup.