tsconfig.json

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    //Use strict type checking
    //This makes it so 'null' and 'undefined' are considered explicit values
    //It shows type errors where types could not be inferred, among other things
    "strict": true,

    //Transforms react JSX syntax into React.createElement() calls
    "jsx": "react",

    //skip type checking .d.ts files, particularly from third party libraries
    //this can massively speed up compilation time
    "skipLibCheck": true,

    //Tell the TypeScript compiler what libraries we expect to exist
    //In this case, we expect the user's browser to have ES6 support (haha) and a dom
    //The idea is that we will polyfill anything additional that we use from es6 in the client code
    "lib": ["es6", "dom"],

    //This causes ES6 modules to be used instead of CommonJS
    //This is important since it enables webpack to do tree shaking optimizations (dead code removal)
    //This has nothing to do with the compilation target, which is still ES3 by default
    "module": "es6",

    //When setting "module": "es6", the typescript compiler defaults to the "classic" module resolution strategy
    //It is important that we use the "node" module resolution strategy instead
    "moduleResolution": "node"
  },
  "exclude": [
    "node_modules"
  ]
}