What is Babel?

Babel is a toolchain that is mainly used to convert ECMAScript 2015+ code into a backwards compatible version of JavaScript in current and older browsers or environments.

Here are the main things Babel can do for you:

  • Transform syntax
  • Polyfill features that are missing in your target environment (through @babel/polyfill)
  • Source code transformations (codemods)

Configuration

Bable can be configured much like or tools such as ESLint and Prettier. Out of the box, any vue-cli generated applications will have Babel setup and configured at a minimum level. We have setup our own babel config to use within our applications.

// babel.config.js

module.exports = {
  presets: [['@vue/app', { useBuiltIns: 'entry' }]]
}
// .browserslistrc

> 0.1% in US
last 2 versions
not dead