Using TypeScript in a Sails app

The recommended language for building Node.js+Sails apps is JavaScript.

But Sails also supports using TypeScript to write your custom app code (like actions and models). You can enable this support in just a few steps:

1. Run npm install typescript ts-node --save in your app folder.
2. Install the necessary typings for your app. At the very least you'll probably want to:

   npm install @types/node --save
   npm install @types/express --save
   

3. Add the following line at the top of your app's app.js file:

   require('ts-node/register');
   

4. Start your app with node app.js instead of sails lift.

To get you started, here's an example of a traditional Sails controller written in Typescript, courtesy of @oshatrk:

// api/controllers/SomeController.ts
declare var sails: any;

export function hello(req:any, res:any, next: Function):any {
  res.status(200).send('Hello from Typescript!');
}

To try that example out, configure a route so that its target points at SomeController.hello, relift, and then visit the route in your browser or with a tool like Postman.