Summary: How to use TypeScript async/await with AngularJS 1.x apps, compiling down to ES5 browsers.
With TypeScript 2.1+, you can start using the awesome new async/await functionality today, even if your users are running old browsers. TypeScript will compile it down to something all browsers can run. 
I’m using Angular 1.x for many of my apps. I wanted to use the sexy new async/await functionality in my Angular code. I didn’t find any examples online how to do this, so I did some experimenting and figured it out.
For the uninitiated, async/await is a big improvement on writing clean async code:
Getting this to work with Angular is pretty simple, requiring only a single step.
1. Use $q for Promise
Since older browsers may not have a global Promise object, we need to drop in a polyfill. Fortunately, we can just use Angular’s $q object as the Promise, as it’s A+ compatible with the Promise standard.
This kills two birds with one stone: we now have a Promise polyfill, and when these promises resolve, the scope will automatically be applied.
2. You’re done! Sort of…
That’s actually enough to start using async/await against Promise-based code, such as ng.IPromise<T>:
Cool. We’re cooking with gas. Except…
Making it cleaner.
If you look at the transpiled javascript, you’ll see that TypeScript is generating 2 big helper functions at the top of every file that uses an async function:
Yikes! Sure, this is how the TypeScript compiler is working its magic: simulating async/await on old platforms going back to IE8 (and earlier?).
Love the magic, but hate the duplication; we’re generating this magic for every TS file that uses async functions. Ideally, we’d just generate the magic once, and have all our async functions reuse it.
We can do just that, explained in steps 3 and 4 below.
3. Use noEmitHelpers TS compiler flag
The TypeScript 2.1+ compiler supports the noEmitHelpers flag. This will isntruct TypeScript not to emit any of its helpers: not for async, not for generators, not for class inheritance, …nuttin’.
Let’s start with that. In my tsconfig.json file, I add the flag:
You can see we’ve set noEmitHelpers to true in line 8. Now if we compile our app, you’ll notice the transpiled UsersController.js (and your code files that use async functions) no longer has all the magic transpiler stuff. Instead, you’ll notice your async functions are compiled down to something like this:
Ok – that actually looks fairly clean. Except if you run it, you’ll get an error saying __awaiter is undefined. And that’s because we just told TypeScript to skip generating the __awaiter helper function.
Instead of having TypeScript compiler generate that in each file, we’re just going to define those magic helper functions once.
4. Use TsLib.js to define the magic helper functions once.
Microsoft maintains tslib, the runtime helpers library for TypeScript apps. It’s all contained in tslib.js, single small file (about 200 lines of JS) that defines all helper functions TypeScript can emit. I added this file to my project, and now all my async calls work again. 
Alternately, you can tell the TypeScript compiler to do that for you using the importHelpers flag.