ts-node cannot find module typescript

Question

I'm deploying a dockerized typescript app on AWS. When I run the app container I get a ts-node error Error: Cannot find module 'typescript' which is not clear to me because typescript is defined as a devDependency. These are my package.json dependencies

{
 "name": "app-server",
 "version": "0.0.0",
 "description": "description",
 "author": "Marcello Bardus",
 "license": "MIT",
 "scripts": {
   "build": "tsc -p tsconfig.build.json",
   "format": "prettier --write \"src/**/*.ts\"",
   "start": "ts-node -r tsconfig-paths/register src/main.ts",
   "start:dev": "nodemon",
   "start:debug": "nodemon --config nodemon-debug.json",
   "prestart:prod": "rimraf dist && tsc",
   "start:prod": "node dist/main.js",
   "lint": "tslint -p tsconfig.json -c tslint.json",
   "test": "jest",
   "test:watch": "jest --watch",
   "test:cov": "jest --coverage",
   "test:debug": "node --inspect-brk -r tsconfig-paths/register -r ts-node/register node_modules/.bin/jest --runInBand",
"test:e2e": "jest --config ./test/jest-e2e.json"
 },
 "dependencies": {
   "@nestjs/common": "^5.4.0",
   "@nestjs/core": "^5.4.0",
   "@nestjs/typeorm": "^5.3.0",
   "@types/mongoose": "^5.3.18",
   "elliptic": "^6.4.1",
   "mongoose": "^5.4.14",
   "object-hash": "^1.3.1",
   "pg": "^7.8.0",
   "randomstring": "^1.1.5",
   "reflect-metadata": "^0.1.12",
   "rimraf": "^2.6.2",
   "rxjs": "^6.2.2",
   "sha2": "^1.0.2",
   "typeorm": "^0.2.13",
   "typescript": "^3.0.1"
 },
"devDependencies": {
  "@nestjs/testing": "^5.1.0",
  "@types/express": "^4.16.0",
  "@types/jest": "^23.3.1",
  "@types/node": "^10.7.1",
  "@types/supertest": "^2.0.5",
  "jest": "^23.5.0",
  "nodemon": "^1.18.10",
  "prettier": "^1.14.2",
  "supertest": "^3.1.0",
  "ts-jest": "^23.1.3",
  "ts-loader": "^4.4.2",
  "ts-node": "^7.0.1",
  "tsconfig-paths": "^3.5.0",
  "typescript": "^3.0.1",
  "tslint": "5.11.0"
},
"jest": {
  "moduleFileExtensions": [
    "js",
    "json",
    "ts"
  ],
"rootDir": "src",
"testRegex": ".spec.ts$",
"transform": {
  "^.+\\.(t|j)s$": "ts-jest"
},
"coverageDirectory": "../coverage",
"testEnvironment": "node"
  }
}

And the Dockerfile

FROM node
WORKDIR /usr/src/app

COPY . /usr/src/app

RUN npm install -g ts-node nodemon
RUN npm install
RUN npm install typescript

EXPOSE 8085

CMD ["nodemon", "."]

I suppose that typescript is installed locally once the container has been built but it's not. Thanks in advance

Answer 1

Finally, I got ts-node to work using npx:

1. Install typescript globally:

   npm i typescript -g
   

2. Go to your project directory and link typescript to the project:

   cd <my-project>
   
   npm link typescript
   

3. Execute ts-node using npx:

   npx ts-node <your-ts-script>.ts