TypeScript WebStorm library sources

Question

I am totally new to TS. Using WebStorm because I am used to JetBrains tooling. From other languages I am used to a workflow where I have some kind of dependency management like maven there is option to download sources downloads me the library source and when I do some debugging or examining of the library I can dig/explore directly in original source code.

Is there something similar possible in TS or is it impossible by design of npm or ts? When I download lib like nestjs I get only typing files and compiles js files. Is there npm option I missed out to also download TypeScript sources and where debugger can work with it?

Answer 1

There is nothing like that. Initially, when node.js and npm appeared, no one was using compilers/transpilers like TypeScript or Babel, everything was just plain javascript. Whatever was published on npm was the source.

Over the years, this has changed, but there is still no designated way to publish sources alongside with the code. The only thing that npm has is optional repository field in package.json, which may contain URL of repository where source code lives. For popular packages, this typically points to github where you can browse the source or clone it.