News of the week of July 28, 2025: TS 5.9 released, Node 22.18 is the first LTS to support TypeScript, a Rust-based alternative to Next.js, plus why Laravel ain't your pappy's PHP. From the community: eslint-max-depth-ts plugin, Zod vs. Valibot battle, Better Auth is so good, a deal with the TypeScript devil, and did you know you can render motion graphics with TypeScript.

Chapters

• (00:00) - Introduction and Personal News

• Announcing TypeScript 5.9 official stable release. No changes since the RC. (h/t Rob Palmer summary)
• Node 22.18 Unflagged TS support, TypeScript is now in LTS
• Introducing Rari by Ryan Skinner – a full stack React runtime 4X faster than Next.js (BlueSky thread with more details)
• Next.js & SvelteKit Templates on Deno
• pnpm adds support for Deno and Bun runtime engine enforcement
• Laravel announced the stable release of Wayfinder, which generates backend types and routes for TypeScript
  • Video: https://youtu.be/UMqSDRe2oH8?si=e6cw57DJVkS40yv8
  • Laracon 2025 Day 1: Keynote Segment by Joe Tannenbaum (@ 06:16:12)
• GitHub: npm trusted publishing with OIDC is generally available
• PSA: Critical Vulnerability in form-data JavaScript Library Exposes Millions of Apps to Code Execution Attacks 

From the Community

• Checked exceptions in personal TypeScript fork by nxjosh 
  • Also: Fork Typescript: You Can Just Do Things
• TypedRocks:  This New ESLint Plugin Fixes Your Nested Unreadable Types in TypeScript
• Jack Harrington: Zod VS Valibot: JS/TS Validator Battle!
• Dreams of Code: Better Auth is so good that I **almost** switched programming languages 
• Maxwell Brown: Effect.ts and Effectful Technologies (devtools.fm)
• Jamie Birch: The many, many, many JavaScript runtimes of the last decade
• Trevor Lasn: NPQ: Open source CLI tool that audits and protects your n... (by our friend Liran Tal)
• Mike Hartington: TypeScript is So Slow… Or Is It? LogRocket podcast 
• Construct: Learn TypeScript in Construct
• Funny post about parsing TS types from string literals using... TS types by easrng

Secret of the Handbook

• Utility type `InstanceType`
  • https://github.com/excaliburjs/Excalibur/pull/3493/files 
  • https://www.typescriptlang.org/docs/handbook/utility-types.html#instancetypetype

Cool Stuff

• MotionCanvas makes cool animations in TypeScript
• https://github.com/sst/opentui – A terminal UI library
• 💩🚀 Windows 95 in Electron. Runs on macOS, Linux, and Windows.
  • I was playing Space Cadet pinball. They also have DOOM and Wolfenstein pre-installed.
• comptime.ts – A Zig-style comptime equivalent for TypeScript projects (Vite/Bun supported)

Sponsored by Excalibur.js
Excalibur.js is the friendly TypeScript game engine for making 2D web games. Use your TypeScript or JavaScript skills to make games! Excalibur comes out-of-the-box with everything you need to make web games, like physics, sprites, animations, sound effects, input, and particles. Design your assets with tools like Aseprite and Tiled, then load them natively using first-party plugins.

Music
Seahorse Dreams by Kubbi (Spotify