I have a TypeScript project in Visual Studio Code with the following task:
{ \"version\": \"0.1.0\", // The command is tsc. \"command\": \"tsc\", /
I believe this was solved by a later feature, namely the pre launch task. You can have it run a task before it launches node/Chrome with F5.
http://tstringer.github.io/javascript/vscode/nodejs/gulpjs/2015/10/14/vscode-prelaunchtask.html