tsc: is there any way to specify no watch on the command line?

Question

In the Typescript compiler cli, is there any way to specify no watch on the command line, i.e. to override the config from tsconfig.json?

Answer 1

i.e. to override the config from tsconfig.json

No. you really should not have watch in tsconfig.json and specify it only when you need it on the command line.

Answer 2

There is no CLI way that I know of. In order to achieve that write a nodejs script which overrides watch to be false. Run the tsc with execSync and change the file back. Here is the nutshell untested.

var path = require('path')
var fs = require('fs')
var execSync = require('child_process').execSync

var pathTofile = path.resolve(process.cwd(), 'tsconfig.json');
var config  = JSON.parse(fs.readFileSync(pathTofile, 'utf8'));
config.watch = false;
fs.writeFileSync(pathTofile, JSON.stringify(config),{encoding:'utf8'});
execSync('tsc');
config.watch = true;
fs.writeFileSync(pathTofile, JSON.stringify(config),{encoding:'utf8'});