References are ignored

[incutonez]

Describe the bug

I have a custom tsconfig.build.json that I use in the tsconfigPath when configuring dts. However, it appears the references in my tsconfig file are just dropped. One of the references has an invalid path, which tsc complains about, but dts does not. It also does not generate any types whatsoever. If I switch to a different tsconfig file that uses includes instead, it does work.

vite.config.build.ts

import { defineConfig } from 'vite'
import vue from '@vitejs/plugin-vue'
import dts from "vite-plugin-dts"

const UseReferences = true;

// https://vite.dev/config/
export default defineConfig({
  plugins: [vue(), dts({
    tsconfigPath: UseReferences ? "tsconfig.build.json" : "tsconfig.json"
  })],
  build: {
    emptyOutDir: true,
    lib: {
      formats: ["es"],
      entry: {
        main: "src/main.ts"
      }
    }
  }
})

tsconfig.build.json

{
  "files": [],
  "references": [{
    "path": "this/does/not/exist.json"
  }, {
    "path": "src/tsconfig.build.json"
  }]
}

src/tsconfig.build.json

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "target": "esnext",
    "composite": true,
    "rootDir": ".",
    "baseUrl": "."
  }
}

tsconfig.json

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "target": "esnext",
    "composite": true,
    "rootDir": "src",
    "baseUrl": "."
  },
  "include": [
    "src/**/*.ts"
  ]
}

Reproduction

https://github.com/incutonez/issues/blob/main/vite%20dts%20plugin%20references%20not%20working.7z

Steps to reproduce

• Download the zip file
• npm i
• npm run build
• Notice that only a main.js file is in the dist dir
• Open vite.config.build.ts and change the UseReferences bool to false
• npm run build
• Notice that there's now a main.d.ts file

System Info

Windows 11
Node: 22.21.1
npm: 10.9.4
@vitejs/plugin-vue: ^6.0.2 => 6.0.4
vite: ^7.2.7 => 7.3.1
vite-plugin-dts: ~4.5.4 => 4.5.4

Validations

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• Check that there isn't already an issue that reports the same bug to avoid creating a duplicate.
• The provided reproduction is a minimal reproducible example of the bug.