From 696c09b0615a20a5df2131354b6009c56d241f1d Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Johannes <johannes.rieken@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2026 10:53:56 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] add

---
 build/buildConfig.ts | 12 ++++++++++++
 build/gulpfile.ts    |  5 ++++-
 build/next/index.ts  |  9 +++++++++
 3 files changed, 25 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
 create mode 100644 build/buildConfig.ts

diff --git a/build/buildConfig.ts b/build/buildConfig.ts
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..a4299d2647f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/build/buildConfig.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+/*---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+ *  Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
+ *  Licensed under the MIT License. See License.txt in the project root for license information.
+ *--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*/
+
+/**
+ * When `true`, self-hosting uses esbuild for fast transpilation (build/next)
+ * and gulp-tsb only for type-checking (`noEmit`).
+ *
+ * When `false`, gulp-tsb does both transpilation and type-checking (old behavior).
+ */
+export const useEsbuildTranspile = true;
diff --git a/build/gulpfile.ts b/build/gulpfile.ts
index 9ee544f0069..1c21618ca60 100644
--- a/build/gulpfile.ts
+++ b/build/gulpfile.ts
@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ import { compileExtensionMediaTask, compileExtensionsTask, watchExtensionsTask }
 import * as compilation from './lib/compilation.ts';
 import * as task from './lib/task.ts';
 import * as util from './lib/util.ts';
+import { useEsbuildTranspile } from './buildConfig.ts';
 
 const require = createRequire(import.meta.url);
 
@@ -32,7 +33,9 @@ gulp.task(transpileClientTask);
 const compileClientTask = task.define('compile-client', task.series(util.rimraf('out'), compilation.copyCodiconsTask, compilation.compileApiProposalNamesTask, compilation.compileTask('src', 'out', false)));
 gulp.task(compileClientTask);
 
-const watchClientTask = task.define('watch-client', task.parallel(compilation.watchTask('out', false, 'src', { noEmit: true }), compilation.watchApiProposalNamesTask, compilation.watchCodiconsTask));
+const watchClientTask = useEsbuildTranspile
+	? task.define('watch-client', task.parallel(compilation.watchTask('out', false, 'src', { noEmit: true }), compilation.watchApiProposalNamesTask, compilation.watchCodiconsTask))
+	: task.define('watch-client', task.series(util.rimraf('out'), task.parallel(compilation.watchTask('out', false), compilation.watchApiProposalNamesTask, compilation.watchCodiconsTask)));
 gulp.task(watchClientTask);
 
 // All
diff --git a/build/next/index.ts b/build/next/index.ts
index 2b926a1e5e6..e7978d726cc 100644
--- a/build/next/index.ts
+++ b/build/next/index.ts
@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ import { nlsPlugin, createNLSCollector, finalizeNLS, postProcessNLS } from './nl
 import { getVersion } from '../lib/getVersion.ts';
 import product from '../../product.json' with { type: 'json' };
 import packageJson from '../../package.json' with { type: 'json' };
+import { useEsbuildTranspile } from '../buildConfig.ts';
 
 const globAsync = promisify(glob);
 
@@ -919,6 +920,14 @@ ${tslib}`,
 // ============================================================================
 
 async function watch(): Promise<void> {
+	if (!useEsbuildTranspile) {
+		console.log('Starting transpilation...');
+		console.log('Finished transpilation with 0 errors after 0 ms');
+		console.log('[watch] esbuild transpile disabled (useEsbuildTranspile=false). Keeping process alive as no-op.');
+		await new Promise(() => { }); // keep alive
+		return;
+	}
+
 	console.log('Starting transpilation...');
 
 	const outDir = OUT_DIR;