Theme: Add bin-specific tsconfig with nodenext module resolution

[aduth]

What?

Adds a new tsconfig.bin.json file to @wordpress/theme so that files in its bin/ directory are treated with nodenext module resolution semantics instead of the default bundler.

Why?

This is a prerequisite to removing esbuild-esm-loader as a dependency of @wordpress/theme, which is now possible after #82370 upgraded to Node.js v24. Since we only use esbuild-esm-loader for basic type-stripping of files run through Node with the package's build scripts, it's a good candidate for using Node's native type-stripping after the upgrade.

We used to have a bin-specific tsconfig for this package prior to #81509 , which then consolidated to a standardized project-wide configuration that has bundler module resolution. Later in #82088, we started intentionally using nodenext as a way to indicate code which we expect should not need to rely on bundler semantics (i.e. extensionless imports). @wordpress/theme's bin scripts are this kind of code, but because it used the consolidated configuration, it inherited the bundler module resolution and therefore incorrectly allowed extensionless imports.

How?

Adds a new packages/theme/tsconfig.bin.json whose primary purpose is to configure nodenext module resolution for scripts in the package that should not rely on bundler import resolution (i.e. bin scripts).

Updates affected files that started to fail after the updated module resolution to specify the .ts extension.

This does not include the actual removal of esbuild-esm-import. As mentioned in Slack and #80395 (comment), it may be inadvisable to take advantage of Node.js v24 features until at least the wp/7.1 branch has been updated to use Node.js v24, in case cherry-picked backport commits cause issues due to dependency on v24.

Testing Instructions

npm run typecheck should pass.

Use of AI Tools

Used Cursor IDE + Auto model to investigate background around why files were permitted to use extensionless imports, and to apply changes to the new configuration. Changes were reviewed by myself.

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Co-authored-by: aduth <aduth@git.wordpress.org>
Co-authored-by: ciampo <mciampini@git.wordpress.org>
Co-authored-by: manzoorwanijk <manzoorwanijk@git.wordpress.org>

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[github-actions]

🤖 PR meta 🤖

📦 Bundle size

Size Change: 0 B

Total Size: 8 MB

_{57799aa Run}

⚡ Performance

Show the results

Client side metrics exclude the server response time.

front-end-block-theme

Metric	b1ea12f	trunk	% Change
timeToFirstByte	58.05 ms +11.89% -7.92%	58.65 ms +9.38% -8.87%	-1.02%
largestContentfulPaint	96 ms +4.17% -10.42%	88 ms +11.36% -4.55%	9.09%
lcpMinusTtfb	32.4 ms +29.32% -3.86%	30.85 ms +12.97% -4.54%	5.02%
wpBeforeTemplate	27.85 ms +26.54% -2.33%	28.49 ms +18.88% -4.77%	-2.25%
wpTemplate	24.04 ms +3.66% -6.16%	24.33 ms +3.12% -6.86%	-1.19%
wpTotal	54.46 ms +9.88% -8.58%	54.93 ms +7.86% -8.9%	-0.86%
wpMemoryUsage	7.52 MB +0% -0%	7.48 MB +0% -0%	0.46%
wpDbQueries	17 +0% -0%	17 +0% -0%	0%

front-end-classic-theme

Metric	b1ea12f	trunk	% Change
timeToFirstByte	42.85 ms +12.14% -1.87%	43.05 ms +7.67% -2.09%	-0.46%
largestContentfulPaint	88 ms +6.82% -0%	88 ms +2.27% -4.55%	0%
lcpMinusTtfb	45.15 ms +1.66% -4.87%	43.15 ms +5.1% -2.67%	4.63%
wpBeforeTemplate	25.93 ms +14.77% -2.85%	25.6 ms +9.69% -1.21%	1.29%
wpTemplate	14.08 ms +5.4% -2.7%	14.21 ms +3.24% -2.81%	-0.91%
wpTotal	39.97 ms +11.61% -1.75%	40.05 ms +7.87% -2.4%	-0.2%
wpMemoryUsage	5.51 MB +0% -0%	5.47 MB +0% -0%	0.64%
wpDbQueries	14 +0% -0%	14 +0% -0%	0%

media-processing

Metric	b1ea12f	trunk	% Change
mediaProcessingJpeg	399.11 ms +0.87% -0.4%	397.25 ms +0.71% -0.62%	0.47%
mediaProcessingAvif	6019.86 ms +0.11% -0.28%	6013.81 ms +0.13% -0.17%	0.1%
mediaProcessingJpegToAvif	4136.89 ms +0.13% -0.13%	4141.66 ms +0.31% -0.35%	-0.12%

media-upload

Metric	b1ea12f	trunk	% Change
jpegUploadProcessing	1438.6 ms +34.18% -1.94%	1418.07 ms +1.93% -1.2%	1.45%
pngUploadProcessing	202.16 ms +1.96% -1.23%	201.97 ms +8.9% -3.48%	0.09%
largeJpegUploadProcessing	1412.01 ms +1.17% -0.28%	1416.46 ms +0.8% -0.62%	-0.31%
multipleImageUploadProcessing	1561.76 ms +9.68% -0.48%	1527.58 ms +1.8% -0.52%	2.24%

post-editor

Metric	b1ea12f	trunk	% Change
serverResponse	514.74 ms +7.78% -9.08%	520.09 ms +1.59% -2.66%	-1.03%
firstPaint	215.9 ms +36.71% -8.68%	216.81 ms +23.56% -11.62%	-0.42%
domContentLoaded	1308.21 ms +1.94% -3.04%	1296.02 ms +1.24% -0.71%	0.94%
loaded	1309.55 ms +1.95% -3.04%	1297.3 ms +1.25% -0.71%	0.94%
firstContentfulPaint	420.81 ms +5.66% -1.26%	431.76 ms +1.88% -2.62%	-2.54%
firstBlock	3628.67 ms +0.82% -1.67%	3583.78 ms +0.77% -0.78%	1.25%
type	15 ms +10.13% -7.47%	15.49 ms +2.78% -7.04%	-3.16%
typeWithoutInspector	15.28 ms +7.07% -2.55%	15.07 ms +2.79% -10.35%	1.39%
typeWithTopToolbar	19.51 ms +5.13% -5.07%	18.3 ms +14.81% -7.65%	6.61%
typeContainer	8.99 ms +3.34% -5.23%	8.89 ms +10.91% -12.37%	1.12%
focus	76.16 ms +16.74% -7.55%	79.51 ms +13.81% -4.39%	-4.21%
firstFocus	175.71 ms +0% -0%	178.51 ms +0% -0%	-1.57%
selectAll	626.02 ms +2.61% -0.78%	594.33 ms +0.65% -0.05%	5.33%
listViewOpen	71.77 ms +8.53% -6.66%	72.3 ms +3.4% -4.91%	-0.73%
inserterOpen	23.01 ms +14.47% -7.56%	24.05 ms +1.95% -3.83%	-4.32%
inserterHover	3.37 ms +4.75% -7.12%	3.76 ms +9.04% -5.32%	-10.37%
inserterSearch	8.22 ms +11.68% -4.99%	8.91 ms +13.58% -8.31%	-7.74%
loadPatterns	615.22 ms +4.07% -3.28%	642.71 ms +3.31% -1.43%	-4.28%
wpTotal	504.59 ms +7.68% -9.26%	510.17 ms +1.59% -2.75%	-1.09%
wpMemoryUsage	13.05 MB +0% -0%	13.02 MB +0% -0%	0.28%
wpDbQueries	54 +0% -1.85%	54 +0% -1.85%	0%

site-editor

Metric	b1ea12f	trunk	% Change
serverResponse	412.92 ms +3.92% -11.75%	397.54 ms +5.34% -6.13%	3.87%
firstPaint	231.34 ms +44.41% -9.5%	225.94 ms +35.34% -3.99%	2.39%
domContentLoaded	1390.39 ms +0.49% -0.74%	1400.52 ms +1.58% -1.84%	-0.72%
loaded	1391.55 ms +0.49% -0.73%	1401.83 ms +1.58% -1.84%	-0.73%
firstContentfulPaint	451.39 ms +2.25% -2.71%	435.23 ms +4.02% -1.95%	3.71%
firstBlock	4331.94 ms +0.79% -0.56%	4366.65 ms +0.18% -0.48%	-0.79%
type	16.32 ms +4.84% -8.39%	15.88 ms +1.32% -5.54%	2.77%
navigate	102.19 ms +14.17% -1.17%	107.4 ms +2.12% -3.5%	-4.85%
loadPatterns	1468.13 ms +8.45% -2.48%	1488.5 ms +3.67% -5.16%	-1.37%
loadPages	1139.88 ms +2% -4.17%	1174.64 ms +2.98% -1.47%	-2.96%
wpTotal	401.83 ms +4.05% -11.92%	386.46 ms +5.54% -6.16%	3.98%
wpMemoryUsage	12.06 MB +0% -0%	12.03 MB +0% -0%	0.3%
wpDbQueries	43 +2.33% -0%	43 +2.33% -0%	0%

_{57799aa Run}

🏁 Flaky tests

Show the failures

Some tests passed with failed attempts. The failures may not be related to this commit but are still reported for visibility. See the documentation for more information.

should allow setting page order to zero and negative values (Site Editor v2) in /test/e2e/specs/site-editor/pages.spec.js, passed after 1 failed attempt.

Error: apiRequestContext.fetch: socket hang up
Call log:
  - → GET http://localhost:8889/wp-json/wp/v2/pages?per_page=100&status=publish%2Cfuture%2Cdraft%2Cpending%2Cprivate%2Ctrash
    - user-agent: Playwright/1.62.1 (x64; ubuntu 24.04) node/24.18 CI/1
    - accept: */*
    - accept-encoding: gzip,deflate,br
    - X-WP-Nonce: 2a9fb21c56
    - cookie: wordpress_test_cookie=WP%20Cookie%20check; wordpress_logged_in_23778236db82f19306f247e20a353a99=admin%7C1789131969%7CbryIzMBKEw8l8h3vkBK8WNY1VFxaiJm4MuChUYh1gtA%7C5d2164b2a3e13bb2e20c1248d84b1b2927d2e8d8cb371e3d8083ff33f77d4771; wp-settings-time-1=1788959452

    at RequestUtils.rest (/home/runner/work/gutenberg/gutenberg/packages/e2e-test-utils-playwright/src/request-utils/rest.ts:112:39)
    at RequestUtils.deleteAllPages (/home/runner/work/gutenberg/gutenberg/packages/e2e-test-utils-playwright/src/request-utils/pages.ts:44:27)
    at /home/runner/work/gutenberg/gutenberg/test/e2e/specs/site-editor/pages.spec.js:106:17

_{57799aa Run}

[manzoorwanijk]

This does not include the actual removal of esbuild-esm-import. As mentioned in Slack and #80395 (comment), it may be inadvisable to take advantage of Node.js v24 features until at least the wp/7.1 branch has been updated to use Node.js v24, in case cherry-picked backport commits cause issues due to dependency on v24.

Then why we are making this change here? 🤔

[ciampo]

Now that wp/7.1 is also on Node 24, should we include the actual removal of esbuild-esm-import ?

[ciampo]

I'd be also ok with merging this PR as-is as a preparation step for the actual removal.

Should we add an "internal" CHANGELOG entry for the theme package?`

[manzoorwanijk]

Looks good. Thanks

[aduth]

Then why we are making this change here? 🤔

Separation of concerns, and because at the time of writing it was the only thing we could land on trunk, and will make the actual dependency removal a one-liner plus lockfile sync.

Should we add an "internal" CHANGELOG entry for the theme package?

I'd lost track where we landed on whether to include non-user/consumer-impacting changes. There was some discussion of it in #78166 (comment) and #80848 (comment), but I suppose the current documented guidance would suggest to always include 🤷 I'll add.

[aduth]

Stack PR for dependency removal: #82680