ReferenceError: await is not defined

Question

I use a CLI that reads capacitor.config.ts. For some reason, I get "ReferenceError: await is not defined" when the CLI reads the file. I recently had the same error with Vite, but cannot reproduce it.

import type {AppConfig} from '../../utils/app-config';
import {resolveAllConfigs} from '../../utils/app-config';
import type {CapacitorConfig} from '@capacitor/cli';

const appConfig: AppConfig = (await resolveAllConfigs({}));

export default ({} as CapacitorConfig);

[error] Parsing capacitor.config.ts failed.
        
        ReferenceError: await is not defined
        at Object.<anonymous>
        (/Users/oliver/Desktop/temp/app-mobile/mobile/packages/app/capacitor.config.ts:4:19)
        at Module._compile (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1256:14)
        at require.extensions..ts
        (/Users/oliver/Desktop/temp/app-mobile/mobile/node_modules/.pnpm/@capacitor+cli@5.4.1/node_modules/@capacitor/cli/dist/util/node.js:34:72)
        at Module.load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1119:32)
        at Module._load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:960:12)
        at Module.require (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1143:19)
        at require (node:internal/modules/cjs/helpers:121:18)
        at requireTS
        (/Users/oliver/Desktop/temp/app-mobile/mobile/node_modules/.pnpm/@capacitor+cli@5.4.1/node_modules/@capacitor/cli/dist/util/node.js:36:15)
        at loadExtConfigTS
        (/Users/oliver/Desktop/temp/app-mobile/mobile/node_modules/.pnpm/@capacitor+cli@5.4.1/node_modules/@capacitor/cli/dist/config.js:89:54)
        at loadExtConfig
        (/Users/oliver/Desktop/temp/app-mobile/mobile/node_modules/.pnpm/@capacitor+cli@5.4.1/node_modules/@capacitor/cli/dist/config.js:123:16)

import type {AppConfig, AppConfigEnv} from './app-config';
import * as cc from 'cosmiconfig';
import {TypeScriptLoader} from 'cosmiconfig-typescript-loader';
import _ from 'lodash';

const COSMICONFIG_LOADERS: cc.Loaders = {'.ts': TypeScriptLoader()};

const resolveConfig = (async(moduleName: string, env: AppConfigEnv): Promise<AppConfig> => {
  const explorer: cc.PublicExplorer = cc.cosmiconfig(moduleName, {loaders: COSMICONFIG_LOADERS});
  const result: (cc.CosmiconfigResult | null) = (await explorer.search());

  if(!result) {
    throw (new Error(`Could not find a valid ${moduleName} configuration.`));
  }

  if((typeof result.config === 'object')) {
    // Object or Promise.

    return (await result.config);
  } else if((typeof result.config === 'function')) {
    // Function.

    return (await result.config(env));
  }

  throw (new Error(`Invalid ${moduleName} configuration.`));
});

const resolveAllConfigs = (async(env: AppConfigEnv): Promise<AppConfig> => {
  const isDevelopment: boolean = (env.mode === 'development');

  return _.merge(
      (await resolveConfig('app', env)),
      ...(isDevelopment ? [
        (await resolveConfig('app--local-default', env)),
        (await resolveConfig('app--local', env))
      ] : [])
  );
});

export {
  resolveConfig,
  resolveAllConfigs
};

Answer 1

Turns out that the Capacitor CLI always compiles capacitor.config.ts as CommonJS: https://github.com/ionic-team/capacitor/blob/main/cli/src/util/node.ts#L12-L50.