Warning: error TS18002: The 'files' list in config file is empty - node.js

Question

I'm using TypeScript 2.1.5.0. I've configured the grunt-typescript-using-tsconfig plugin as shown below but I get the error in the subject line when I execute the task.
The problem is the tsconfig.json property "files":[]. I didn't encounter this error when using gulp-typescript. Do you recommend that I configure something differently? Either my gruntfile.js for this plugin or tsconfig.json? Or can you recommend a different grunt plugin that will successfully hook into tsconfig.json and process the typescript task as expected?
typescriptUsingTsConfig: {
basic: {
options: {
rootDir: "./tsScripts"
}
}
}

Answer 1

Or can you recommend a different grunt plugin that will successfully hook into tsconfig.json and process the typescript task as expected?
gulp typescript supports tsconfig : https://github.com/ivogabe/gulp-typescript/#using-tsconfigjson
var tsProject = ts.createProject('tsconfig.json');
gulp.task('scripts', function() {
var tsResult = gulp.src(tsProject.src())
.pipe(tsProject());
return tsResult.js.pipe(gulp.dest('release'));
});

Answer 2

Try setting your Gruntfile.js configuration as shown in the following gist :
Gruntfile.js
module.exports = function(grunt) {
grunt.initConfig({
typescriptUsingTsConfig: {
basic: {
options: {
rootDir: './'
}
}
}
});
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-typescript-using-tsconfig');
grunt.registerTask('default', [
'typescriptUsingTsConfig'
]);
};
Note the value for rootDir is set to ./ (i.e. The same folder as the Gruntfile.js).
tsconfig.json
Then ensure you have your tsconfig.json configured to include a list of all .ts files to be compiled to .js. For example:
{
"compilerOptions": {
"outDir": "./dist"
},
"files": [
"./tsScripts/a.ts",
"./tsScripts/b.ts",
"./tsScripts/c.ts"
]
}
There are of course other compiler options you can set in tsconfig.json
Directory structure
The configurations above assumes a directory structured as follows, however you can just adapt the code examples as required:
foo
├── Gruntfile.js
├── tsconfig.json
├── tsScripts
│ ├── a.ts
│ ├── b.ts
│ └── c.ts
└── node_modules
└── ...
Running grunt
cd to the project folder, (in these examples the one named foo), and run:
$ grunt
Output
Running grunt will create a folder named dist and output all .js files to it. For example:
foo
├── dist
│ ├── a.js
│ ├── b.js
│ └── c.js
└── ...
If you want the resultant .js files to be output to the same folder as the source .ts file, (i.e. not to the 'dist' folder), just exclude the "outDir": "./dist" part from your ts.config.json.