"Cannot find module" for node.js modules only for Visual Studio intellisense

Here is an example: I installed axios (npm install axios --save), and try to import it in a .tsx file with import axios from 'axios';

This compiles fine with tsc version 2.3.3, no error, no warning. And it works at runtime as well.

But for some reason, Visual Studio 2017 IntelliSense, for which I installed typescript SDK 2.3.3.0, gives the error Cannot find module 'axios'. It works only if I give him the relative path (in my case, ../../../../node_modules/axios/index, which is far from practical.

I've read the resolution mechanism used by typescript, and for this case it should find the axios/package.json file, with a "typings" entry that indicates ./index.d.ts. I suppose that's what tsc does, and why compilation works fine, but IntelliSense has some issue somewhere.

Am I doing something wrong, or is it an IntelliSense bug?

via youen