github.com/microsoft/typescript-go

This package provides Go bindings for parsing TypeScript/JavaScript code, but it feels very experimental in practice. The error handling is inconsistent—parse failures sometimes panic rather than returning errors gracefully, which can crash your service if you're processing untrusted input. There's no built-in sanitization or size limits on input, so you need to implement your own guards against maliciously large files or deeply nested ASTs that could exhaust memory.

The dependency chain includes several C/C++ components bridged through cgo, which raises supply chain concerns and makes builds slower and less portable. I've encountered segfaults when parsing certain malformed input, suggesting the underlying native code doesn't handle all edge cases safely. The project lacks clear CVE tracking or security disclosure processes, and the documentation doesn't address security considerations at all.

For production use where you're parsing untrusted code, you'll need significant defensive wrappers: timeouts, memory limits, input validation, and panic recovery. The API itself is straightforward once you understand the AST structure, but the operational risks outweigh the convenience unless you're only processing fully trusted input.

The typescript-go package attempts to bridge TypeScript and Go, which sounds promising in theory. However, the learning curve is steeper than expected. The documentation is sparse, with limited examples covering real-world scenarios. I found myself frequently diving into the source code to understand how to properly handle type conversions and AST manipulation, which significantly slowed down development.

Error messages are often cryptic, especially when dealing with complex TypeScript constructs. When something goes wrong during parsing or transformation, you're left with generic errors that don't point you to the actual problem. Debugging required extensive use of fmt.Printf statements throughout my code to trace execution flow.

Community support is practically non-existent. Stack Overflow has virtually no questions about this package, and GitHub issues get sporadic responses. For common tasks like parsing TypeScript files and extracting type information, I had to piece together solutions from reading tests in the repo. If you need this functionality, be prepared to invest significant time understanding the internals.

The typescript-go package attempts to bridge TypeScript and Go by providing TypeScript AST parsing capabilities in Go. While the core functionality works for basic parsing tasks, the learning curve is steep due to minimal documentation. The README provides only a basic example, and you'll find yourself reading TypeScript compiler source code to understand node types and structure.

Error messages are cryptic when parsing fails, often just returning generic parse errors without context about what went wrong or where. Debugging requires intimate knowledge of TypeScript's AST structure. The API mirrors TypeScript's compiler API somewhat, but without the extensive documentation that exists for the JavaScript version. Stack Overflow has virtually no questions about this package, and GitHub issues show sporadic maintainer responses.

For simple use cases like extracting basic type information, it's manageable once you overcome the initial hurdles. However, anything beyond straightforward parsing becomes an exercise in trial and error. The package feels like an internal tool open-sourced without sufficient developer experience polish.