Can't import CSS/SCSS modules. TypeScript says "Cannot Find Module"

Question

I'm trying to import a theme from a CSS module but TypeScript gives me a "Cannot Find Module" error and the theme isn't applied on runtime. I think there's something wrong with my Webpack config but I'm not sure where the problem is.

I'm using the following tools:

"typescript": "^2.0.3"
"webpack": "2.1.0-beta.25"
"webpack-dev-server": "^2.1.0-beta.9"
"react": "^15.4.0-rc.4"
"react-toolbox": "^1.2.3"
"node-sass": "^3.10.1"
"style-loader": "^0.13.1"
"css-loader": "^0.25.0"
"sass-loader": "^4.0.2"
"sass-lint": "^1.9.1"
"sasslint-webpack-plugin": "^1.0.4"

Here is my webpack.config.js

var path = require('path');
var webpack = require('webpack');
var sassLintPlugin = require('sasslint-webpack-plugin');

module.exports = {
  entry: [
    'webpack-dev-server/client?http://localhost:8080',
    'webpack/hot/dev-server',
    './src/index.tsx',
  ],
  output: {
    path: path.resolve(__dirname, 'dist'),
    publicPath: 'http://localhost:8080/',
    filename: 'dist/bundle.js',
  },
  devtool: 'source-map',
  resolve: {
    extensions: ['.webpack.js', '.web.js', '.ts', '.tsx', '.js'],
  },
  module: {
    rules: [{
      test: /\.js$/,
      loader: 'source-map-loader',
      exclude: /node_modules/,
      enforce: 'pre',
    }, {
      test: /\.tsx?$/,
      loader: 'tslint-loader',
      exclude: /node_modules/,
      enforce: 'pre',
    }, {
      test: /\.tsx?$/,
      loaders: [
        'react-hot-loader/webpack',
        'awesome-typescript-loader',
      ],
      exclude: /node_modules/,
    }, {
      test: /\.scss$/,
      loaders: ['style', 'css', 'sass']
    }, {
      test: /\.css$/,
      loaders: ['style', 'css']
    }],
  },
  externals: {
    'react': 'React',
    'react-dom': 'ReactDOM'
  },
  plugins: [
    new sassLintPlugin({
      glob: 'src/**/*.s?(a|c)ss',
      ignoreFiles: ['src/normalize.scss'],
      failOnWarning: false, // Do it.
    }),
    new webpack.HotModuleReplacementPlugin(),
  ],
  devServer: {
    contentBase: './'
  },
};

and my App.tsx where I'm trying to import:

import * as React from 'react';

import { AppBar } from 'react-toolbox';
import appBarTheme from 'react-toolbox/components/app_bar/theme.scss'
// local ./theme.scss stylesheets aren't found either 

interface IAppStateProps {
  // No props yet
}

interface IAppDispatchProps {
  // No state yet
}

class App extends React.Component<IAppStateProps & IAppDispatchProps, any> {

  constructor(props: IAppStateProps & IAppDispatchProps) {
    super(props);
  }

  public render() {
    return (

        <div className='wrapper'>
          <AppBar title='My App Bar' theme={appBarTheme}>
          </AppBar>
        </div>

    );
  }
}

export default App;

What else is required to enable typesafe stylesheet module importing?

Answer 1

TypeScript does not know that there are files other than .tsor .tsx so it will throw an error if an import has an unknown file suffix.

If you have a webpack config that allows you to import other types of files, you have to tell the TypeScript compiler that these files exist. To do so add a declaration file in which you declare modules with fitting names.

The content of the module to declare depends on the webpack loader used for the file type. In a webpack configuration that pipes *.scss files through sass-loader → css-loader → style-loader, there will be no content in the imported module, and the correct module declaration would look like this:

// declaration.d.ts
declare module '*.scss';

If the loaders are configured for css-modules just extend the declaration like this:

// declaration.d.ts
declare module '*.scss' {
    const content: {[className: string]: string};
    export default content;
}