vercel-labs/scriptc

Scriptc is an experimental tool that turns TypeScript and JavaScript code into a standalone program that can run directly on your computer, instead of needing Node.js installed to run it. It also compiles to WebAssembly, a format that can run in many different environments. It reads and checks your TypeScript the normal way, then translates it into a lower level language a standard compiler called clang understands, and that compiler produces the final native program. Programs built this way include a small built in runtime, but they do not carry a full JavaScript engine with them, so they start up quickly and stay small. If part of your code cannot be turned into a native program this way, scriptc tells you exactly where and why. For code that genuinely needs the flexibility of a real JavaScript engine, such as npm packages using dynamic features, you can pass a special flag that bundles in a small JavaScript engine just for that code. A command called scriptc coverage checks how much of a given program can be compiled this direct, fast way versus how much needs the fallback engine, which is useful for understanding whether your project is a good fit for this approach. Many common Node.js features are supported out of the box, including building simple web servers, promises, async and await, timers, and reading from the terminal. Building programs for WebAssembly targets requires an additional compiler toolchain called Zig, and some capabilities are unavailable when targeting WebAssembly, such as opening network connections directly or starting other processes, since the WebAssembly environment does not allow those by default. To use scriptc you need Node.js version 20 or newer and clang installed on your machine, though the programs it produces do not need Node installed to run. The project is still experimental and currently targets macOS, Linux, Windows, and WebAssembly.