BitBurnerTS

This project contains the files I am writing for playing Bitburner. I have configured this project to use TypeScript. It plays well with the VSCode plugin and API Server of the Steam version of the game.

How to use this project

You can copy my repo and just delete the contents of the ts/, js/, and newb/ folders, which contain my scripts. You don't want them. Write your own. You may want to keep template.ts, though.

Leave the types/ folder because it contains the types needed for the game.

When you want to use a type, you'll need to import it, at least with my configuration. I have strict on and no implicit any, so you can disable any of those is you want.

JavaScript:

/** @param {NS} ns **/
export async function main(ns) {
  ...
}

TypeScript:

  import { NS } from "../types/NetscriptDefinitions";
  
  export async function main(ns: NS) : Promise<void> {
    ...
  }

You'll need npm. Just run npm install to install the dependencies. Then just use

tsc -w

to watch your changes and compile.

If you use the VSCode extension for Bitburner, you can have it automatically upload your outputted JS files to the game.

Handling Args

If you keep things strict, you'll need to handle args carefully, because args have a type of string | number | boolean. If you want to assign to a string type, you'll need to force a type change or check the type before assignment. I am dumb, so here's my solution:

  import { NS } from "../types/NetscriptDefinitions";
  
  export async function main(ns: NS) : Promise<void> {
    let arg0 = "";
    
    if (typeof (ns.args[0]) == "string")) {
      arg0 = ns.args[0];
    }
    else {
      ns.tprint("Error: Argument 0 is not a string!");
      ns.kill(SCRIPT_NAME, HOST_SERVER, ns.args[0].toString());
    }
    
  }

Declare a variable of the type you want, check to see if the argument is the right type, then assign it to your variable.

Import Modules

In order to import compiled modules, a bit of tomfoolery is required. In the tsconfig.json, we need the following:

    "compilerOptions": {
      ...
      "outDir": "js",
      "paths": {
          "js/*": ["ts/*"]
      }
    }
    "include": [
      "types/**/*.d.ts",
      "ts/**/*"
    ]

The include section tells the compiler where to look for ts files. The paths section tells the compiler that if it sees a /js/* path while compiling, to treat it as a /ts/* path. Then in our TypeScript file, we can use:

import { CONSTANTS  }   from "js/common/constants";

to import

export class CONSTANTS {
    static readonly SCRIPT_DIRECTORY = "js/";
}

This will allow the game to properly call the right import file while still compiling properly. I have seen other solutions as well.

The reason this seems to hapen with my configuration is that the relative pathing gets messed up. If I run js/simpleHack.js, the ./common/constants path will not work, but a path from the base directory will work.