This repo is an Angular 2 distribution with typings included in the NPM package. It's a proof-of-concept for solving angular/angular#3082 in a way that lets developers start coding Angular 2 this fast:

$ mkdir angular2-quickerstart; cd angular2-quickerstart
$ npm install typescript angular2@alexeagle/angular2-distro
$ ./node_modules/.bin/tsc -init --experimentalDecorators --target es5
# Open VSCode
# Start coding in .ts - completion, error-highlighting, nav-to-docs all work!
$ ./node_modules/.bin/tsc --watch

It works because the TypeScript team has developed a way for the compiler (and editor plugins that use TypeScript's language services) to find the type definitions directly from the node_modules folder.

Remaining problems to address before shipping:

• VSCode should use the version of typescript found in node_modules by default: mailed a contact on the team requesting this
• tsc --watch should see newly added files, so we can start the compiler before coding: microsoft/TypeScript#4553