Deploy a Node.js server made with TypeScript on Heroku

Question

I want to deploy a Node.js server made with TypeScript on Heroku. But this does not work. I have read many tutorials and other questions on Stack Overflow, but none of them work. Below I post my code for tsconfig.json and package.json.

package.json


  "main": "build/index.js",
  "scripts": {
    "start": "node build/index.js",
    "dev": "nodemon server.js",
    "build-ts": "tsc",
    "start:dev": "nodemon --config \"./nodemon.json\"",
    "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1",
    "heroku-postbuild": "npm run build-ts"
  },
  "keywords": [],
  "author": "Gabriel Meyer",
  "license": "MIT",
  "devDependencies": {
    "@types/cors": "^2.8.6",
    "@types/express": "^4.17.3",
    "@types/node": "^12.12.31",
    "nodemon": "^2.0.2",
    "prettier": "^2.0.2",
    "ts-node": "^8.8.1",
    "tslib": "^1.11.1",
    "tslint": "^6.1.0",
    "typescript": "^3.8.3"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "body-parser": "^1.19.0",
    "cors": "^2.8.5",
    "express": "^4.17.1",
    "uuid": "^7.0.2",
    "websocket": "^1.0.31"
  }

tsconfig.json


{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "module": "commonjs",
    "strict": true,
    "baseUrl": ".",
    "rootDir": "src",
    "outDir": "build",
    "sourceMap": true,
    "removeComments": true,
    "experimentalDecorators": true,
    "target": "ES6",
    "esModuleInterop": true,
    "emitDecoratorMetadata": true,
    "moduleResolution": "node",
    "importHelpers": true,
    "strictPropertyInitialization": false,
    "types": ["node"],
    "typeRoots": ["node_modules/@types"]
  },
  "include": ["src/**/*.ts"],
  "exclude": ["node_modules"]
}

index.ts


import express from 'express';
const app = express();
const port: string | number = process.env.PORT || 5000;
app.use('*', (req, res) => {
  res.send('<h1>Welcome to your server!</h1>');
});

// create a server object:
app.listen(port, () => console.log(`hosting @${port}`));

Do you have the logs from heroku? If you have the cli installed, you can use the command heroku logs --tail to get the logs. — Adithya Sreyaj
– Adithya Sreyaj, Commented Apr 18, 2020 at 11:14

GaboTheLegend · Accepted Answer · 2020-04-18 11:22:53Z

2

Now I have found the answer:

My mistake was, that I have put all Typescript-related dependencies into the devDependencies. Heroku needs typescript, ts-node and tslib as a regular dependency, to transpile .ts-files to .js-files. See below:

package.json

"dependencies": {
    "ts-node": "^8.8.1",
    "tslib": "^1.11.1",
    "typescript": "^3.8.3",
    "body-parser": "^1.19.0",
    "cors": "^2.8.5",
    "express": "^4.17.1",
    "uuid": "^7.0.2",
    "websocket": "^1.0.31"
}

answered Apr 18, 2020 at 11:22

GaboTheLegend

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1 Comment

defraggled Over a year ago

This wasn't a mistake. The better approach is to introduce a few extra steps into your heroku build process, like so: 1) install ALL packages (including devdeps) 2) tsc 3) npm prune --production (removes dev dependencies). There are heroku buildbacks which do this, or depending on your project, you can do this yourself.

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