When trying to transpile the angular2 sources directly through:

tsc -p angular/modules/angular2 --outDir dist/node_modules/angular2

some of the resulting .d.ts files attempt to make a reference that assumes they did not move.

For example, the .d.ts from angular/modules/angular2/src/di/injector.d.ts attempts to reference angular/modules/angular2/typings/es6-promise/es6-promise.d.ts. Instead of taking the shortest relative reference ( ../../typings/es6-promise/es6-promise.d.ts ), it tries this:

/// <reference path="../../../../../angular/modules/angular2/typings/es6-promise/es6-promise.d.ts" />

This causes issues when angular2 is no longer in the angular/modules/ directory.

Solution

I have no idea why this works, but if angular2/is moved out of angular/modules/ before transpiling, these weird reference issues go away.