tsserver watches node_modules directory unnecessarily

[danyq]

TypeScript Version: 3.5.3

Search Terms: node_modules watch

Actual behavior:

tsc --watch creates too many inotify watches. For source code with a few hundred files, it creates 17061 watches, shown with this script:
https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/502812

   INOTIFY
   WATCHER
    COUNT     PID     CMD
----------------------------------------
   17061      486  /usr/bin/node /home/danyq-reduct/MONO-REPO/reduct-app/node_modules/.bin/tsc --watch

Moving files out of node_modules causes the count to go down.

   INOTIFY
   WATCHER
    COUNT     PID     CMD
----------------------------------------
   11877    19225  /usr/bin/node /home/danyq-reduct/MONO-REPO/reduct-app/node_modules/.bin/tsc --watch

Expected behavior:

The number of inotify watches should be comparable to the number of source files and not depend on node_modules.

Related Issues:

• Initializing JS/TS Features is extremely slow with WSL and node_modules Initializing JS/TS Features is extremely slow with WSL and node_modules #33335
• TSServer High CPU usage TSServer High CPU usage #31248
• [2.8.0-rc] Segfault when running compiler with --d or --watch (out of memory) [2.8.0-rc] Segfault when running compiler with --d or --watch (out of memory) #22826

[sheetalkamat]

It wont be unnecessary.. If you program includes source files, they will be watched. tsc --listFiles will help you show what files are included in the program. tsc --traceResolution will help you diagnose why.

[typescript-bot]

This issue has been marked 'Working as Intended' and has seen no recent activity. It has been automatically closed for house-keeping purposes.

[vikigenius]

@sheetalkamat I just stumbled onto the same issue. tsc --listfiles lists 247 files. But inotify watcher count is over 5000, is this normal ?