How to run typescript compiler as a package.json script without grunt or gulp

"build": "tsc main.ts dist/"

Highly recommend you use tsconfig.json and then the -p compiler option to build your code. Look at: Compilation-Context

Setup

Here is the setup for using tsc with NPM scripts

init

npm init
npm install typescript --save

And then in your package.json add some scripts:

"scripts": {
    "build": "tsc -p .",
    "start": "npm run build -- -w"
},

Enjoy 🌹

If you want to compile and run, you can use the ts-node module.

npm install --save-dev ts-node 
npm install --save-dev typescript

And run with:

"scripts": {
    "start": "ts-node index.ts"
},

All other typescripts files that index.ts has imported (along with imports from index.ts dependencies) will be compiled and executed.