Confusing "duplicate identifier" Typescript error message

Question

This is because of the combination of two things:

• tsconfig not having any files section. From http://www.typescriptlang.org/docs/handbook/tsconfig-json.html

  If no "files" property is present in a tsconfig.json, the compiler defaults to including all files in the containing directory and subdirectories. When a "files" property is specified, only those files are included.

• Including typescript as an npm dependency : node_modules/typescript/ This means that all of typescript gets included .... there is an implicitly included lib.d.ts in your project anyways (http://basarat.gitbook.io/typescript/content/docs/types/lib.d.ts.html) and its conflicting with the one that ships with the NPM version of typescript.

Fix

Either list files or include explicitly https://basarat.gitbook.io/typescript/docs/project/files.html 🌹

Update: Version 1.0 of Typings changed the output structure and the below answer relates to pre 1.0 version.

If you are using Typings and exclude in your tsconfig.json, you may run into the issue of duplicate types and need something like the following:

{
  "exclude": [
    "typings/browser.d.ts",
    "typings/browser",
    "node_modules"
  ]
}

To simplify integration with TypeScript, two files - typings/main.d.ts and typings/browser.d.ts - are generated which reference all the typings installed in the project only one of which can be used at a time.

So depending on which version you need, you should exclude (or include) the "browser" or the "main" type files, but not both, as this is where the duplicates come from.

This Typings issue discusses it more.

If you have installed typings separately under typings folder

{
  "exclude": [
    "node_modules",
    "typings"
  ]
}

Problem was solved by simply:

1. Deleting the node_modules folder
2. Running npm install to get all packages with correct versions

In my case, the problem occurred after changing Git branches, where a new branch was using a different set of node modules. The old branch was using TypeScript v1.8, the new one v2.0

You could also use the exclude option in tsconfig.json file like so:

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "target": "es5",
    "module": "commonjs",
    "declaration": false,
    "noImplicitAny": false,
    "removeComments": true,
    "noLib": false,
    "emitDecoratorMetadata": true,
    "experimentalDecorators": true
  },
  "exclude": [
    "node_modules"
  ]
}

I just ran into this problem. When I ran npm start, I got a bunch of duplicate identifier errors.

SOLUTION:

From the project root folder run:

rm -r typings
typings install
npm start

and everything works fine.

In my case I got the error as

node_modules/@types/es6-promise/index.d.ts(11,15): error TS2300: Duplicate identifier 'Promise'.

And I had @types/es6-promise on my package.json but my tsconfig was already with target: "es6". So I guess there was a conflict with Promise when compiling.

Removing @types/es6-promise from my package.json file solved the issue.