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Remove extraneous top-level await requirement #37794

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Remove extraneous top-level await requirement#37794
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QuestionAn issue which isn't directly actionable in code

Description

@Vandivier
John Vandivier (Vandivier)
opened on Apr 4, 2020

This may be a bug, I'm not sure. So I'm submitting as a feature request.

Search Terms

await, top-level, disable rule

Suggestion

"isolatedModules": true, should not be required to remove top-level await error.

Use Cases

I'm scripting a very simple file I/O script using Deno. The script runs without issue. Full code is in the below example.

Even though it works, VS Code complains. I think the complaint is at the TS level and I can't ignore it as a specific error. I can ts-ignore line-by-line, but that's not satisfactory.

The error is 'await' expressions are only allowed at the top level of a file when that file is a module, but this file has no imports or exports. Consider adding an empty 'export {}' to make this file a module.ts(1375)

Examples

const decoder = new TextDecoder("utf-8");
const data = await Deno.readFile("tsconfig.json"); // <!-- VS Code shouldn't have red squiggle here.
console.log(decoder.decode(data));

Checklist

I have no idea whether this feature meets the items in the checklist.

Related Issues

  1. [merged PR] Add top-level await for esnext and system modules #35813
  2. @ts-ignore for the block scope and imports #19573
  3. Top Level "for await" not supported, but should be #37402
  4. Support top level "for await of" #37424
  5. [closed] Top-level await error message is extremely unclear #36036

Activity

  1. kitsonk commented on Apr 5, 2020

    @kitsonk
    Kitson Kelly (kitsonk)
    on Apr 5, 2020
    Contributor

    John Vandivier (@Vandivier) TLA await are invalid in script files. Deno loads every file as an ESM file, but to VSCode your example doesn't look like a module, so it it is treating it like a script. The current canonical way to for a file to be a module instead of a script when there are no other imports or exports is to include an export {} in the file. This will resolve the issue.

    There is a proposal for a pragma to force modules, but it is Stage 1 (early stages) in TC39.

  2. Ryan Cavanaugh (RyanCavanaugh)
    added
    QuestionAn issue which isn't directly actionable in code
    on Jun 1, 2020
  3. TypeScript Bot (typescript-bot)
    closed this as completedon Jun 6, 2020

  4. typescript-bot commented on Jun 6, 2020

    @typescript-bot
    TypeScript Bot (typescript-bot)
    on Jun 6, 2020
    Contributor

    This issue has been marked as 'Question' and has seen no recent activity. It has been automatically closed for house-keeping purposes. If you're still waiting on a response, questions are usually better suited to stackoverflow.

  5. avin-kavish commented on Aug 10, 2022

    @avin-kavish
    Avin (avin-kavish)
    on Aug 10, 2022

    Kitson Kelly (@kitsonk) We now have a way to know whether files are implicitly to be treated as modules though, i.e. type: "module". So can we consider this?

    Not sure why target in tsconfig.json alone is not enough though. If it's set to a module, all files get compiled into modules.

  6. RyanCavanaugh commented on Aug 10, 2022

    @RyanCavanaugh
    Ryan Cavanaugh (RyanCavanaugh)
    on Aug 10, 2022
    Member

    Addressed at #36036 (comment)

  7. microsoft
    locked as resolved and limited conversation to collaborators on Oct 21, 2025
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