Why This Matters

Let’s be blunt. The old TypeScript workflow was a pain. You wrote beautiful, strongly-typed code, then had to babysit a toolchain that stripped it down before execution. Babel configs. tsconfig.json tweaks. Random build failures at 2 a.m. Sound familiar?

That’s what native type stripping is here to kill. Engines like Node.js (V8), Deno (Rust + V8), and Bun (JavaScriptCore) now handle TypeScript natively, stripping types at runtime without the fragile middle layer.

What Was Broken

- The Build Step: Every project needed a fragile chain of compilers and bundlers.

- Performance Hits: Builds took forever. VS Code itself once took 77 seconds to compile.

- Developer Fatigue: Debugging wasn’t about fixing your code it was about fixing the toolchain.

I’ve seen teams lose entire nights chasing down mismatched configs. One client even lost $40K in downtime because their build pipeline broke during deployment.

What Actually Works Now

Native type stripping means engines themselves do the heavy lifting. No external transpiler. No fragile configs. Just:

- Faster Builds: Benchmarks show 10x speed improvements. Playwright dropped from 11.1s to 1.1s.

- Cleaner Deployments: Less tooling means fewer moving parts to break.

- Direct Execution: Write TypeScript, run TypeScript. The engine strips types on the fly.

Here’s the kicker: Bun, Deno, and Node.js each approach it differently

War Stories

I saw this break during a 2 a.m. migration in 2024. The build pipeline froze, and we had to roll back to an older Node.js version just to keep production alive.

Compare that to 2026: now, you can run bun run index.ts and it just works. No transpiler. No hacks.

Another example: a team migrating a massive monorepo shaved hours off CI/CD pipelines simply by switching to native stripping. That’s not hype that’s saved payroll.

The Verdict

Native type stripping isn’t just a shiny feature. It’s a structural shift.

- Pros: Speed, simplicity, fewer tools, less fragility.

- Cons: Still early edge cases exist, and Bun’s ecosystem isn’t as mature as Node’s.

- Takeaway: If you’re starting fresh in 2026, you’d be crazy not to leverage native stripping. For legacy projects, the migration pain is worth the payoff.

Visual Snapshot

Imagine a simple chart showing build times before and after native stripping