All modern versions of Node need to run packages as modules is "type": "module" in package.json, but I don't see any flags for npm init or yarn init that will add that property.
Is there a flag for either package manager or an easy way to add the value to package.json (i.e., npm package-property set type module or something similar)?
For ES compatible modules there exists create-esm package. Among other things (docs) it also populates module field.
So it seems you could use npm init esm.
Install globally:
yarn global add @tsmodule/tsmodule
Create a new project:
tsmodule create [—-react] project-name
Or convert your project to a TS Module (ESM + TypeScript):
tsmodule convert
See https://github.com/tsmodule/tsmodule.
create-esnextInstall create-esnext globally:
yarn global add create-esnext
# or
npm i -g create-esnext
In the folder where you would run npm init:
yarn create esnext
# or
npm init esnext
This does exactly what you asked:
npm init es6
It creates a package.json with the "type": "module" setting.