TypeScript 7 Beta Now Enabled by Default in Visual Studio 2026 18.6 Insiders 3

In Visual Studio 2026 18.6 Insiders 3 we have updated the built-in TypeScript SDK to TypeScript 7 Beta (native preview). The TypeScript SDK provides the compiler and language service used for TypeScript and JavaScript support in Visual Studio. This update impacts any project that uses the built-in SDK, including TypeScript projects, ASP.NET Core projects with npm packages, and any TypeScript or JavaScript files you are editing. If your project doesn’t have a specific TypeScript version installed, Visual Studio will use the new native compiler by default. In this post we will go over what this change means for you, how to use a different version of TypeScript if needed, and the known issues we are currently working on. You can download the latest Insiders release with the link below.

What is the TypeScript 7 native preview?

TypeScript 7 is a native port of the TypeScript compiler and tools. This is a significant change that brings native execution speed and shared-memory parallelism to the TypeScript compiler and language service. We have seen compile time improvements of up to 10x for large code bases, along with substantially reduced memory usage. If you are working with large TypeScript or JavaScript projects, you should see a noticeable improvement across your entire development experience.

In addition to faster compile times, the TypeScript language service has significant performance improvements as well. We have seen that the time to load projects has decreased roughly 8x. The improvements are not limited to load times; you should see a general speed improvement across the board with any features which interact with the TypeScript language service. Some of the Visual Studio features that benefit from these improvements include.

• IntelliSense and completions. Code completions and parameter info should appear faster, especially in large projects where you may have previously noticed a delay.
• Find All References. Searching for references across your solution is significantly faster.
• Go to Definition. Navigating to definitions is more responsive.
• Error diagnostics. Squiggles and error lists update more quickly as you type.
• Project load times. Opening TypeScript and JavaScript projects in Visual Studio should be noticeably faster, with load times decreasing by roughly 8x.

If you are working with large code bases, you should see a noticeable improvement to your entire development experience. You will spend less time waiting for the IDE to respond and more time being productive working on your applications.

For more details on TypeScript 7 and the performance improvements, see the Announcing TypeScript 7.0 Beta blog post.

Using a different TypeScript version

Visual Studio ships with a built-in version of the TypeScript compiler and language service for cases where the project doesn’t specify a specific version to be used. Starting with this release, that built-in version is TypeScript 7 Beta. If you prefer to use a different version, you can install it in your project and Visual Studio will always use the project-local version over the built-in one.

Disabling TypeScript 7 native preview

If you want to go back to using the previous TypeScript language service, you can disable the native preview in Visual Studio. Go to Tools > Options > Preview Features and search for “native preview”. Uncheck the Enable JavaScript/TypeScript Native Language Service Preview option and restart Visual Studio.

Using TypeScript 6.x (GA)

To use the current stable release, install the typescript package in your project.

npm install -D typescript@^6.0.0

Using a specific TypeScript 7 native preview version

If you want to pin to a specific version of the native preview, install the @typescript/native-preview package.

npm install -D @typescript/native-preview@beta

In both cases, Visual Studio will detect the version in your node_modules and use that instead of the built-in SDK.

Known issues

TypeScript 7 brings significant performance improvements to Visual Studio, and we are continuing to refine the experience. Below are the known issues that we are actively working on. This is not an exhaustive list.

• IntelliSense. You may notice completions not appearing in some cases. In .cshtml files, the TypeScript completion list may not appear inside a <script> tag. When accepting a completion for the last argument of a function, the closing parenthesis may be removed. Pressing Ctrl+Space can work around this.
• Code Actions & Refactoring. Quick fixes (Ctrl+.) are not available yet. Only Copilot AI-based suggestions may appear. The Organize Imports command (Ctrl+R, Ctrl+G) is also not available.
• Navigation & Search. The navigation bar dropdowns at the top of the editor do not show document symbols. Find All References (Shift+F12) shows a flat list without semantic grouping (read/write/declaration), and cross-file references may be incomplete. Code search results may show mismatched titles and descriptions.
• CodeLens. Reference counts (e.g., “19 references”) do not appear above interface and class declarations.
• Hover tooltips. Hover tooltips are missing the symbol icon and have different text coloring compared to the previous language service.
• Snippets. Insert Snippet (Ctrl+K, Ctrl+X) does not work in JavaScript files.
• JSDoc. Typing /** above a function with parameters does not auto-generate the JSDoc template with @param entries.
• Formatting. Unchecking “Format on open block {” in Tools > Options > Text Editor > JavaScript/TypeScript > Formatting does not take effect.
• Task List. If a TypeScript file contains both a TODO comment and a variable named “TODO”, the Task List may incorrectly show duplicate tasks.
• File and folder rename. Renaming a file or folder in a TypeScript project does not consistently update import paths in other files.
• File watching. When files are modified outside of Visual Studio, changes are not detected until the file is opened and modified inside the IDE. Errors from external edits will not appear in the Error List.

We appreciate your feedback as we work toward full parity.

Reporting feedback

If you have feedback on the TypeScript compiler, or language service, the best place to file feedback is the typescript-go GitHub repo.

If you are running into an issue that is specific to Visual Studio, you can share feedback with us via Developer Community: report any bugs or issues via report a problem and share your suggestions for new features or improvements to existing ones.

We would love if you could try out the new experience and let us know how it’s working for you. Please try it out and share your feedback with us.