Describe alternatives to require.extensions

[dilyanpalauzov]

https://nodejs.org/api/modules.html#modules_require_extensions says require.extensions is deprecated.

Per TypeStrong/ts-node#641 and TypeStrong/ts-node#989 there are no alternatives. They reference further the documentation of @babel/node, @babel/register, and coffeescript.

• Either re-introduce require.extensions or describe more precisely the alternatiles that should be used.

[devsnek]

The goal is for it to be replaced by loaders of some sort (like ESM)

[arpowers]

I agree require.extensions should be "undeprecated" or a true alternative should be introduced.

[nyteshade]

Cannot agree more folks. The solution to be able to load custom extensions within an application by simply using require is pretty paramount. Please provide a sanctioned alternative, I could think of a few, or even a proper API around this.

For example, you could even apply a chain of loaders for a specific extension allowing each to process the output of the previous before the final result appeared. Allowing conditional processing for extension functions and so on.

[jdmarshall]

I'm trying to support someone on

node-config/node-config#769

And it appears that their problem is that neither Bun nor Node 22 added .ts to require.extensions. In node if .ts isn't registered, the library tries to load ts-node, but ts-node does not play nice with Bun.

Everyone in the Node community needs a way to determine if third party library is needed to run TS or not.

Node is the first ecosystem I've been in where deprecation warnings went in before the replacement was production ready.

Deprecated since: v0.10.6

Guys.. come on. This is just embarrassing.