angular-cli: Angular-cli doesn't watch for ALL files correctly.

After investigating, you’re correct in your assumption that it’s not the same issue.

The problem is 3 fold:

1. TypeScript discards type information, and since you’re only importing types that file will be discarded from the compilation output;
2. Since it’s discarded from the output, Webpack does not know about the dependency between your file and the TypeScript that includes the type.
3. We rely on Webpack’s dependency graph to actually know if something needs rebuilding.

The only point where we actually have control is point 3 and we should look at dependencies inside TypeScript and tell webpack about TS’s dependency graph. I’ll come up with a fix soon.

Ok so I’m looking at the file online in https://unpkg.com/@ngtools/webpack@1.7.3/src/loader.js. You’re right, it’s quite different. We published stable (1.7.3) but also the beta (1.8.0-beta.4), and a lot of code in that PR is only for the beta.

What you want to change is:

// from
            _getImports(refactor, compilerOptions, plugin.compilerHost, plugin.moduleResolutionCache)
                .forEach((importString) => this.addDependency(importString));
// to
            _getImports(refactor, compilerOptions, plugin.compilerHost, plugin.moduleResolutionCache)
                .forEach((dep) => this.addDependency(dep.replace(/\//g, path.sep)));

This should be enough to test.

I’ll take a look and try to get some numbers to benchmark. Thank you.