docs: improve readability: extract transpiler/tsconfig to standalone (#…

…215)

Having these on their own markdown pages makes it much easier to
explain,
and the table view produced by default Stardoc is terrible at showing so
much nested stuff.

.gitattributes

@@ -1 +1,2 @@
-docs/*.md linguist-generated=true
+docs/rules.md linguist-generated=true
+docs/repositories.md linguist-generated=true

README.md

@@ -7,17 +7,18 @@ This is a high-performance alternative to the `@bazel/typescript` npm package fr
 The `ts_project` rule here is identical to the one in rules_nodejs, making it easy to migrate.
 Since rules_js always runs tools from the bazel-out tree, rules_ts naturally fixes most usability bugs with rules_nodejs:
 
-- Freely mix generated `*.ts` and `tsconfig.json` files in the bazel-out tree with source files
-- Fixes the need for any `rootDirs` settings in `tsconfig.json` as reported in https://github.com/microsoft/TypeScript/issues/37378
-- "worker mode" for `ts_project` now shares workers across all targets, rather than requiring one worker pool per target
+-   Freely mix generated `*.ts` and `tsconfig.json` files in the bazel-out tree with source files
+-   Fixes the need for any `rootDirs` settings in `tsconfig.json` as reported in https://github.com/microsoft/TypeScript/issues/37378
+-   "worker mode" for `ts_project` now shares workers across all targets, rather than requiring one worker pool per target
 
 rules_ts is just a part of what Aspect provides:
 
 -   _Need help?_ This ruleset has support provided by https://aspect.dev.
 -   See our other Bazel rules, especially those built for rules_js, linked from <https://github.com/aspect-build>
 
 Known issues:
-  - Does not work with `--worker_sandboxing`.
+
+-   Does not work with `--worker_sandboxing`.
 
 ## Installation
 
@@ -33,6 +34,8 @@ If you'd like an example added, you can file a Feature Request.
 
 ## Usage
 
+See the API documentation in [the docs/ folder](./docs/).
+
 ### From a BUILD file
 
 The most common use is with the [`ts_project` macro](./docs/rules.md#ts_project) which invokes the

docs/transpiler.md

@@ -0,0 +1,51 @@
+# Transpiling TypeScript to JavaScript
+
+The TypeScript compiler `tsc` can perform type-checking, transpilation to JavaScript, or both.
+Type-checking can be slow, and is really only possible with TypeScript, not with alternative tools, because the type system is so rich that writing a correct checker is a massive undertaking.
+
+Transpilation is mostly "erase the type syntax" and can be done well by a variety of tools.
+`tsc` is regarded as the slowest option for transpilation, so it makes sense to divide the work between two tools. 
+
+`ts_project` supports this with the following design goals:
+
+- The user should only need a single BUILD.bazel declaration of "this is my TypeScript code and its dependencies".
+- Most developers have a working TypeScript Language Service in their editor, so they got type hinting before they ran the build tool.
+- Development activities which rely only on runtime code, like running tests or manually verifying behavior in a devserver, should not need to wait on type-checking.
+- Type-checking still needs to be verified before checking in the code, but only needs to be as fast as a typical test.
+
+Read more: https://blog.aspect.dev/typescript-speedup
+
+## ts_project#transpiler
+
+The `transpiler` attribute of `ts_project` lets you select which tool produces the JavaScript outputs. The default value of `None` means that `tsc` should do transpiling along with type-checking, as this is the simplest configuration without additional dependencies. However as noted above, it's also the slowest.
+
+The `transpiler` attribute accepts a rule or macro with this signature:
+`name, srcs, js_outs, map_outs, **kwargs`
+where the `**kwargs` attribute propagates the tags, visibility, and testonly attributes from `ts_project`.
+
+If you need to pass additional attributes to the transpiler rule, you can use a
+[partial](https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel-skylib/blob/main/lib/partial.bzl)
+to bind those arguments at the "make site", then pass that partial to this attribute where it will be called with the remaining arguments.
+
+See the examples/transpiler directory for a simple example using Babel, or
+<https://github.com/aspect-build/bazel-examples/tree/main/ts_project_transpiler>
+for a more complete example that also shows usage of SWC.
+
+## Macro expansion
+
+When a custom transpiler is used, then the `ts_project` macro expands to these targets:
+
+- `[name]` - the default target which can be included in the `deps` of downstream rules.
+    Note that it will successfully build *even if there are typecheck failures* because invoking `tsc` is not needed to produce the default outputs.
+    This is considered a feature, as it allows you to have a faster development mode where type-checking is not on the critical path.
+- `[name]_typecheck` - provides typings (`.d.ts` files) as the default output.
+    Building this target always causes the typechecker to run.
+- `[name]_typecheck_test` - a [`build_test`] target which simply depends on the `[name]_typecheck` target.
+    This ensures that typechecking will be run under `bazel test` with [`--build_tests_only`].
+- `[name]_typings` - internal target which runs the binary from the `tsc` attribute
+-  Any additional target(s) the custom transpiler rule/macro produces.
+    (For example, ome rules produce one target per TypeScript input file.)
+
+
+[`build_test`]: https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel-skylib/blob/main/rules/build_test.bzl
+[`--build_tests_only`]: https://docs.bazel.build/versions/main/user-manual.html#flag--build_tests_only

docs/tsconfig.md

@@ -0,0 +1,94 @@
+# Configuring TypeScript
+
+TypeScript provides "compiler options" which interact with how Bazel builds and type-checks code.
+
+## General guidance
+
+Keep a `tsconfig.json` file at the root of your TypeScript sources tree, as an ancestor of all TypeScript files.
+This should have your standard settings that apply to all code in the package or repository.
+This ensures that editors agree with rules_ts, and that you have minimal repetition of settings which can get diverged over time.
+
+## Mirroring tsconfig settings
+
+`ts_project` needs to know some of the values from tsconfig.json.
+This is so we can mimic the semantics of `tsc` for things like which files are included in the program, and to predict output locations.
+
+These attributes are named as snake-case equivalents of the tsconfig.json settings.
+For example, [`outDir`](https://www.typescriptlang.org/tsconfig#outDir) is translated to `out_dir`.
+
+The `ts_project` macro expands to include a validation action, which uses the TypeScript API to load the `tsconfig.json` file (along with any that it `extends`) and compare these values to attributes on the `ts_project` rule.
+It produces [buildozer] commands to correct the BUILD.bazel file when they disagree.
+
+[buildozer]: https://github.com/bazelbuild/buildtools/blob/master/buildozer/README.md
+
+## Locations of tsconfig.json files
+
+You can use a single `tsconfig.json` file for a repository.
+Since rules_js expects files to appear in the `bazel-out` tree, the common pattern is:
+
+1. In the `BUILD.bazel` file next to `tsconfig.json`, expose it using a `ts_config` rule:
+
+```starlark
+load("@aspect_rules_ts//ts:defs.bzl", "ts_config")
+
+ts_config(
+    name = "tsconfig",
+    src = "tsconfig.json",
+    visibility = [":__subpackages__"],
+)
+```
+
+2. In child packages, set the `tsconfig` attribute of `ts_project` rules in subpackages to point to this rule.
+
+```
+load("@aspect_rules_ts//ts:defs.bzl", "ts_config")
+
+ts_project(
+    ...
+    tsconfig = "//my_root:tsconfig",
+)
+```
+
+You can also use nested `tsconfig.json` files. Typically you want these to inherit common settings from the parent, so use the [`extends`](https://www.typescriptlang.org/tsconfig#extends) feature in the `tsconfig.json` file. Then you'll need to tell Bazel about this dependency structure, so add a `deps` list to `ts_config` and repeat the files there.
+
+## Inline (generated) tsconfig
+
+The `ts_project#tsconfig` attribute accepts a dictionary.
+If supplied, this dictionary is converted into a JSON file.
+It should have a top-level `compilerOptions` key, matching the tsconfig file JSON schema.
+
+Since its location differs from `tsconfig.json` in the source tree, and TypeScript
+resolves paths in `tsconfig.json` relative to its location, some paths must be
+written into the generated file:
+
+- each file in srcs will be converted to a relative path in the `files` section.
+- the `extends` attribute will be converted to a relative path
+
+The generated `tsconfig.json` file can be inspected in `bazel-out`.
+
+> Remember that editors need to know some of the tsconfig settings, so if you rely
+> exclusively on this approach, you may find that the editor skew affects development.
+
+You can mix-and-match values in the dictionary with attributes.
+Values in the dictionary take precedence over those in the attributes,
+and conflicts between them are not validated. For example, in
+
+```starlark
+ts_project(
+    name = "which",
+    tsconfig = {
+        "compilerOptions": {
+            "declaration": True,
+            "rootDir": "subdir",
+        },
+    },
+    out_dir = "dist",
+    root_dir = "other",
+)
+```
+
+the value `subdir` will be used by `tsc`, and `other` will be silently ignored.
+Both `outDir: dist` and `declaration: true` will be used.
+
+As with any Starlark code, you could define this dictionary in a central location and load it as a symbol into your BUILD.bazel files.
+

examples/path_mappings/BUILD.bazel

@@ -17,7 +17,6 @@ ts_project(
     name = "path_mappings",
     srcs = ["foo.ts"],
     declaration = True,
-    tsconfig = "tsconfig.json",
     validate = False,
     deps = _DEPS,
 )

examples/project_references/app/BUILD.bazel

@@ -5,6 +5,5 @@ ts_project(
     composite = True,
     declaration = True,
     extends = "//examples/project_references:tsconfig-base",
-    tsconfig = "tsconfig.json",
     deps = ["//examples/project_references/lib_b"],
 )