Hey @epreston! We really appreciate you taking the time to report an issue. The collaborators on this project attempt to help as many people as possible, but we're a limited number of volunteers, so it's possible this won't be addressed swiftly.

If you need any help, or just have general Babel or JavaScript questions, we have a vibrant Slack community that typically always has someone willing to help. You can sign-up here for an invite.

Thank you babel-bot. We need to update the documentation or tool.

It should definitely be intersected, I'll check what the code does.

If you specify your targets at the top level of your config (so in the generic Babel options — https://babeljs.io/docs/en/options#targetsesmodules), esmodules will be intersected with browsers:

{
  "targets": {
    "browsers": "Edge >= 108, Firefox >= 108, FirefoxAndroid  >= 107, Chrome >= 108, ChromeAndroid >= 108, Safari >= 16.1, iOS >= 16.1, not dead",
     "esmodules": true
  },
  "presets": [
    [
      "@babel/preset-env",
      {
        "bugfixes": true,
        "useBuiltIns": "usage",
        "corejs": "3.27.2"
      }
    ]
  ]
}

However, for backward compatibility we couldn't change the pre-existing behavior of @babel/preset-env's targets option, so esmodules there completely overwrites browsers. We need to document this.

I recommend using the top-level targets option, instead of @babel/preset-env's targets, because:

• it has the better intersection behavior
• can also be read by other plugins that can adjust their behavior based on your targets, while if you use it just in @babel/preset-env other plugins will always assume the oldest possible targets.

We need to document this.

We can also modify the message in code to link to the documentation.

I see, that makes sense. You are right, using the top-level targets option is the best way to go.

Should I leave this open to capture the "documentation" task ?

Should I leave this open to capture the "documentation" task ?

Yes please! (or, if you want to open a PR to github.com/babel/website, that would be even better 👀)

Good idea, I will try my hand at updating the documentation. I'll reference the info you provided here and close issue once the PR is submitted.

PR Submitted. Thank you for clarifying this for me.

Yes please! (or, if you want to open a PR to github.com/babel/website, that would be even better 👀)

I did that, waited a month. What's the process ?

Sorry, the only problem was that I somehow forgot about your PR 😅

Maybe it's for the best. @JLHwung was able to help us refine it with the extra time.