CLI Reference

Usage

ts-aot <input.ts> [options]

The input file can be .ts, .tsx, .js, or .jsx.

Options

Output

Flag	Description
`-o <file>`	Output executable path. Required.

Optimization

Flag	Description
`-O0`	No optimization (default). Fastest compilation.
`-O1`	Basic optimizations.
`-O2`	Standard optimizations. Good balance of speed and compile time.
`-O3`	Maximum optimization. Best runtime performance.

Debug

Flag	Description
`-g`	Generate debug symbols (.pdb on Windows).
`--dump-ir`	Print generated LLVM IR to stdout.
`--dump-hir`	Print HIR (intermediate representation) to stdout.
`--dump-types`	Print inferred types to stdout.

Advanced

Flag	Description
`--bundle-icu`	Embed ICU data in executable (~29MB larger, no external `icudt74l.dat` needed).
`--gc-statepoints`	Enable precise GC roots via LLVM statepoints (experimental).
`--legacy-parser`	Use Node.js-based parser instead of native C++ parser.

Examples

# Basic compilation
ts-aot app.ts -o app.exe

# Optimized build
ts-aot app.ts -o app.exe -O2

# Debug build with symbols
ts-aot app.ts -o app.exe -g

# Inspect generated IR
ts-aot app.ts --dump-ir -o /dev/null

# Check type inference
ts-aot app.ts --dump-types -o /dev/null

# Self-contained executable (no external ICU data file)
ts-aot app.ts -o app.exe --bundle-icu

Entry Point

All programs must define a user_main() function:

function user_main(): number {
    // Your program here
    return 0;  // Exit code
}

The compiler generates a main() function that initializes the runtime (GC, libuv event loop, ICU) and calls user_main().

Supported File Types

Extension	Handling
`.ts`	TypeScript with full type analysis
`.tsx`	TypeScript + JSX
`.js`	JavaScript (dynamic/slow path)
`.jsx`	JavaScript + JSX

TypeScript files get optimized codegen paths (typed arrays, integer specialization, flat objects). JavaScript files still compile but fall back to boxed any values for untyped operations.