npx tsc -w is triggering itself after each build

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No amount of exclude or watchOptions seems to have any impact.

I am outputting my JavaScript files along side my TS files, which is what I want, I don't know why it keeps retriggering itself

Output looks like this

> npx tsc --watch --extendedDiagnostics
[08:05:29 PM] Starting compilation in watch mode...

[08:05:29 PM] Found 0 errors. Watching for file changes.

[08:05:29 PM] File change detected. Starting incremental compilation...

[08:05:30 PM] Found 0 errors. Watching for file changes.

[08:05:30 PM] File change detected. Starting incremental compilation...

[08:05:31 PM] Found 0 errors. Watching for file changes.

[08:05:31 PM] File change detected. Starting incremental compilation...

[08:05:31 PM] Found 0 errors. Watching for file changes.

[08:05:32 PM] File change detected. Starting incremental compilation...

[08:05:32 PM] Found 0 errors. Watching for file changes.

npx tsc --showConfig doesn't show any watchOptions not sure if they are getting picked up

🕗 Version & Regression Information

"name": "@typescript/typescript-win32-x64",
"version": "7.0.2",

⏯ Playground Link

No response

💻 Code

No response

🙁 Actual behavior

tsc -w triggers itself in a loop

🙂 Expected behavior

tsc -w doesn't triggers itself in a loop

Additional information about the issue

No response

Ha, I figured out what it was!

It was wgo, I had this thing https://github.com/bokwoon95/wgo watching for changes to my Go programs. Once I stopped these it started working. Maybe you want to look in to that, because I don't think they should be interfering with each other. I don't know what wgo is doing but if it is causing events that trigger tsc needlessly that wrong?

No, I don't think anything is wrong here. wgo is updating a file in the same directory regardless of any changes, I suspect this is triggering tsc, which is understandable.

How can I get it to ignore this file? It's a *.wasm file

This doesn't seem to the trick

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "types": ["node"],
    "jsx": "react-jsx",
    "jsxImportSource": "preact",
    "module": "nodenext",
    "moduleResolution": "nodenext",
    "target": "esnext",
    "strict": true
  },
  "include": ["**/*.ts"],
  "exclude": ["**/*.js", "**/*.js.map", "**/*.d.ts", "**/*.wasm"],
  "watchOptions": {
    "excludeFiles": ["**/*.js", "**/*.js.map", "**/*.d.ts", "**/*.wasm"],
    "excludeDirectories": ["**/node_modules"]
  }
}

We need a concrete repro in order to investigate

I'll see if I can make a small and simple one...

Experiencing the same issue.

Very simple repro:

run tsc --watch --preserveWatchOutput
create a directory at the root
tsc will detect the new directory and trigger a re-run

File change detected. Starting incremental compilation...

This does not happen if I create a new file at the root, or create a new file in the newly created directory, or delete the newly created directory.
For example

/tsconfig.json
/bogus/ <- new directory, triggers compilation despite not being included in tsconfigs
           deleting it does not trigger compilation
/bogus/bogus.ts <- new file, no issues
/bogus.ts <- new file, no issues

I should add that TS7's watch mode does not offer any way afaict to log which file/folder triggered a re-run.

I have a repro below on 7.0.2 (macOS, fsevents backend).

I'm pretty sure it's the same issue as the original report: in watch mode, any write under a recursive include root triggers a rebuild. exclude is ignored.

Expected: no rebuild for writes under excluded directories. 6.0.3 with the same project compiles once at startup and doesn't react to build/ writes.

repro/
├── src/index.ts        // export const a = 1;
└── tsconfig.json

// tsconfig.json
{
  "compilerOptions": { "noEmit": true, "incremental": true, "tsBuildInfoFile": "./build/tsconfig.tsbuildinfo" },
  "include": ["**/*"],
  "exclude": ["build"]
}

Running TS_WATCH_DEBUG=1 tsc --watch --preserveWatchOutput produces:

Starting compilation in watch mode...
[watch] watching directory /repro (recursive=true)
Found 0 errors. Watching for file changes.

[watch] 2 event(s): update /repro/build, update /repro/build/tsconfig.tsbuildinfo
File change detected. Starting incremental compilation...        // triggered by its own tsbuildinfo
Found 0 errors. Watching for file changes.

Further updates to files under repro/build produce similar rebuilds, despite the exclude statement.

For anyone else debugging this: TS_WATCH_DEBUG=1 logs the event paths that trigger each rebuild.

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npx tsc -w is triggering itself after each build #64037

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npx tsc -w is triggering itself after each build #64037

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🕗 Version & Regression Information

⏯ Playground Link

💻 Code

🙁 Actual behavior

🙂 Expected behavior

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msab-john commented on Aug 26, 2026

msab-john commented on Aug 26, 2026

RyanCavanaugh commented on Aug 26, 2026

msab-john commented on Aug 27, 2026

nstepien commented on Sep 3, 2026

njmarsh commented on Oct 5, 2026

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