Migrating to TypeScript Strict Mode at an Early-Stage Startup

Having worked with a few services written in JavaScript at my previous workplace for over two years, I was happy to see TypeScript on my first day at WisdomCircle.

We didn’t have strict mode, but what we had was better than vanilla JavaScript.

Migration was always on my mind, but as a startup, we were always busy shipping new ideas and improvements.

For a long time, I deferred the migration for the right moment  —  a relatively less packed sprint where we could migrate. Sprint over sprint, our codebase grew larger. I realized the right time would never come, and a longer wait would mean a bigger debt.

Given our busy sprints, I planned to migrate in phases.

• Phase 1: Migrate all the modules that don’t have any dependency by taking an hour out every other day
• Phase 2: Migrate all the other modules by blocking a few days in our sprint only for migration

In the first phase, where not everything was in strict mode, we used the typescript-strict-plugin to turn strict mode on conditionally.

We completed Phase 1 in two months along with our regular sprints. Thanks to Phase 1, we didn’t have to block too many no-new-development days for Phase 2. We wrapped up Phase 2 in three days.

We shipped our February 2024 release with the migration. Over the next few weeks, we observed a significant reduction in our error rates.

Closing Notes

We’re very happy with how everything turned out. We have been able to catch more errors first-hand. We have been more productive and more confident in what we ship.