Node ESM support has gotten a lot better through versions 12-17. The biggest problems for workflows that currently work “well” for CJS are: 1. --experimental-l

Node ESM support has gotten a lot better through versions 12-17. The biggest problems for workflows that currently work “well” for CJS are: 1. --experimental-loader is more complex and less stable than --require. But it’s also a lot more robust. 2. There’s no equivalent to the require cache, which makes mocking and long running processes like watch mode challenging. This is partly a benefit, as it discourages cache busting patterns like those used in eg Jest which create awful memory leaks.