From 2841bcfa09c82be0892c2d3a54c8e09872be7695 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: conor <con.brad@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:51:40 -0700
Subject: [PATCH] fix(cli): support TypeScript 7 when loading
 capacitor.config.ts

TypeScript 7 dropped the classic compiler API (transpileModule,
ModuleKind, etc.) from its default export, so requireTS's use of
ts.transpileModule throws on projects with typescript@7 installed and
every command that reads capacitor.config.ts fails immediately.

Detect when that API isn't available and fall back to Node's own
built-in TypeScript syntax stripping via a real dynamic import
(stable since Node 23.6, available behind --experimental-strip-types
since Node 22.6) instead of transpiling the file ourselves. Falls
back to a clear error if neither is available. Projects on older
TypeScript versions are unaffected: the existing transpileModule
path is unchanged.

Fixes #8531
---
 cli/src/config.ts    |  2 +-
 cli/src/util/node.ts | 40 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-
 2 files changed, 40 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/cli/src/config.ts b/cli/src/config.ts
index 4e71fb01d1..bb71177dcd 100644
--- a/cli/src/config.ts
+++ b/cli/src/config.ts
@@ -113,7 +113,7 @@ async function loadExtConfigTS(
     }
 
     const ts = require(tsPath); // eslint-disable-line @typescript-eslint/no-var-requires
-    const extConfigObject = requireTS(ts, extConfigFilePath) as any;
+    const extConfigObject = (await requireTS(ts, extConfigFilePath)) as any;
     const extConfig = extConfigObject.default ? await extConfigObject.default : extConfigObject;
 
     return {
diff --git a/cli/src/util/node.ts b/cli/src/util/node.ts
index 299dffdd3f..6f511da25b 100644
--- a/cli/src/util/node.ts
+++ b/cli/src/util/node.ts
@@ -2,17 +2,55 @@ import { existsSync } from 'fs';
 import { readFileSync } from 'fs-extra';
 import { resolve } from 'path';
 import type typescript from 'typescript';
+import { pathToFileURL } from 'url';
 
 interface NodeModuleWithCompile extends NodeJS.Module {
   _compile?(code: string, filename: string): any;
 }
 
+/**
+ * TypeScript 7 dropped the classic compiler API (transpileModule, ModuleKind, etc.) from its
+ * default export -- `require('typescript')` now only exposes `version`/`versionMajorMinor`.
+ * Detect that case so we can fall back to a loading strategy that doesn't depend on it.
+ *
+ * @see https://github.com/ionic-team/capacitor/issues/8531
+ */
+function hasClassicCompilerAPI(ts: typeof typescript): boolean {
+  return typeof ts.transpileModule === 'function';
+}
+
+/**
+ * A plain `import()` here gets downleveled to a `require()` call by tsc when compiling to
+ * CommonJS (our build target), which defeats the purpose -- we specifically need the real ESM
+ * loader so Node's native TypeScript stripping kicks in. Constructing the import from a string
+ * keeps tsc from touching it.
+ */
+const dynamicImport: (specifier: string) => Promise<any> = new Function('specifier', 'return import(specifier)') as any;
+
 /**
  * @see https://github.com/ionic-team/stencil/blob/HEAD/src/compiler/sys/node-require.ts
  */
-export const requireTS = (ts: typeof typescript, p: string): unknown => {
+export const requireTS = async (ts: typeof typescript, p: string): Promise<unknown> => {
   const id = resolve(p);
 
+  if (!hasClassicCompilerAPI(ts)) {
+    // Node has its own built-in TypeScript syntax stripping (stable since Node 23.6, and
+    // available behind --experimental-strip-types since Node 22.6), so we can load the file
+    // directly via the native ESM loader instead of transpiling it ourselves.
+    try {
+      return await dynamicImport(pathToFileURL(id).href);
+    } catch (e: any) {
+      if (e?.code === 'ERR_UNKNOWN_FILE_EXTENSION') {
+        throw new Error(
+          `Your installed version of TypeScript (${ts.version}) no longer provides the compiler API Capacitor previously used to load .ts config files, ` +
+            `and your Node.js runtime (${process.version}) doesn't support loading them natively either.\n` +
+            'Upgrade to Node.js 22.6+ (running with --experimental-strip-types), or Node.js 23.6+, to continue using capacitor.config.ts.',
+        );
+      }
+      throw e;
+    }
+  }
+
   delete require.cache[id];
 
   require.extensions['.ts'] = (module: NodeModuleWithCompile, fileName: string) => {