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• Would you like to work on this feature?

What problem are you trying to solve?

Scenario: using Babel with Webpack X and targeting Browser Y. Browser Y supports syntax Z, but Webpack X doesn't.

@babel/preset-env will not compile syntax Z, and then Webpack will throw about it saying "unexpected token; you might need an appropriate loader to handle this file". Users are surprised/annoyed, because they expected Babel to properly handle modern syntax.

Describe the solution you'd like

babel-loader should pass through .caller the webpack/acorn version, and @babel/preset-env should have data to know which plugins to compile. This can also apply to other tools, but I have always only seen this problem reported by people using webpack.

We can consider console.warning if we have to enable a plugin just because Webpack needs it, and not because the target browser needs it.

Describe alternatives you've considered

We could allow setting webpack: "XXX" in targets, but it requires users to explicitly set it rather than being automatic.

Documentation, Adoption, Migration Strategy

Nothing, users will just see less confusing errors :)

Related: #14280