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meow executes a single ES module to completion through V8. It runs .js, .mjs, .cjs, and TypeScript (.ts, .mts, .cts, .tsx) directly — no build step, no ts-node, no loader flags.

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meow run

meow run <target> does one of two things, in this order:
  1. If <target> matches a script in your package.json, it runs that script (with pre/post lifecycle hooks — see below).
  2. Otherwise it treats <target> as a file path, resolves it, and drives that module through the runtime.

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Forwarding arguments

Pass arguments to your program after --:
Everything after -- is forwarded verbatim as the program’s argv.

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meow dev

meow dev is shorthand for meow run dev. It prints a cold-start banner with your project mode and the time-to-first-byte, then runs the dev script:

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meow task

meow task <name> runs a package.json script by name, using the same resolution as meow run. It’s the explicit form when a script name might collide with a file path.

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The omni-router

meow leans on muscle memory. When the first argument isn’t a known subcommand, the omni-router infers your intent so you rarely need to type run or x: It also smooths over cross-ecosystem habits:
  • Competitor flags are stripped before parsing: --shell <value>, --silent, --no-warnings, and redundant inner package-manager calls (bun run bun build → bun run build).
  • Deno-style run flags are stripped: -A, --allow-all, --unstable, --unstable-* are accepted and ignored, so scripts copied from Deno don’t crash.
Mistype a command and meow suggests the nearest match: Unknown command 'installc'. Did you mean 'install'?

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package.json scripts

When you run a script, meow plans how to execute it intelligently rather than always spawning a shell:
1

Native fast path

If the script is a simple command whose target resolves to a local file or a dependency’s bin (e.g. node ./build.cjs, tsc, vite), meow runs it directly in the runtime — no shell process.
2

Shell fallback

If the script uses shell features — pipes, &&, redirects, globs, subshells — meow runs it through sh -c (or cmd /C on Windows) so it behaves exactly as written.

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Lifecycle hooks

pre<name> and post<name> scripts run automatically around <name>, npm-style. A non-zero exit from a pre hook stops the chain.
package.json
meow also sets the familiar lifecycle environment variables for scripts: INIT_CWD, npm_lifecycle_event, npm_lifecycle_script, and npm_package_json.

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Eval & print

Run inline source without a file:
-p / --print wraps your expression in console.log(...). (These map to the internal node-eval mode; an interactive REPL is not provided.)

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Exit codes

meow propagates your program’s exit code to the shell. process.exit(n) and a natural completion both surface correctly (codes are taken modulo 256, like a normal process):

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V8 tuning

Two escape hatches pass straight through to the engine:
--max-old-space-size is also read from NODE_OPTIONS if present, for drop-in compatibility.

Next: TypeScript support

How meow runs .ts directly, and the one place it diverges from Node’s ESM resolution.