Theo Ported TypeScript to Rust with AI and Never Read the Code

Theo Browne released ts-rust (tsc-rs), a full Rust port of the TypeScript compiler, type checker and language server, written by AI agents. An initial attempt with OpenAI models cost about $400,000 and reached only 84% compatibility, while Opus produced a working version in 10 hours for $24,000. On VS Code a full type check takes 4.20s versus 54.56s for tsc 6 — a 13x speedup.

• ts-rust is a full Rust port of the TypeScript compiler, installed via npm install -D tsc-rs
• First attempt: $400,000 in tokens and 1.3M lines of Rust, but only 84% compatibility
• Opus built a working version in 10 hours for $24,000, rewriting the code from scratch
• On VS Code type checking takes 4.20s versus 54.56s for tsc 6 — a 13x speedup