cc/ @giltayar, our resident ESM czar. I know Node 20 causes problems if you happen to be on it

Try node --loader ts-node/esm --loader testdouble ...

I'm not sure when multiple loaders started getting supported, so maybe 16 does not support multiple, so if that doesn't work, try v18.

And as @searls DON'T use v20, as there are serious bugs there around loaders.

@giltayar node documentation for v16 shows clearly support for multiple loaders. However - the docs are for v16.20.0 and I had v16.13.2.
I tried something similar to your suggestion (NODE_OPTIONS="--loader=testdouble --loader=ts-node/esm" npm run test) with node 18 and indeed I am not getting errors, but I also do not see mocking working (the original implementation gets called). You can see it here:
https://github.com/codan84/jest-ts-experiments/tree/ava-testdouble (mind the ava-testdouble branch)

The order of loaders is important and the loader passed last gets invoked first, thus I believe the order should be --loader=testdouble --loader=ts-node/esm.

Unsure why mocks do not work with the solution in my repo.

Thanks for the excellent reproduction! It really helped me figure things out.

First, how to make it work, and then why.

1. Reverse the loaders. First testdouble then ts-node/esm
2. In td.replaceEsm('../src/want-to-be-mocked.js'), use the .ts extension, i.e. td.replaceEsm('../src/want-to-be-mocked.ts')!

Now for the why:

1. When chaining loaders, a loader can "short circuit" loaders after it , meaning: "ignore their result, use mine!". Unfortunately, ts-node/esm is always short circuiting, and not behaving like a good citizen (it even says so in the code). This is why I had to switch the order, to not allow it short circuit testdouble!

2. Now for the interesting part: the ts-node/esm replaces .js extensions with the .ts extensions (when appropriate), so that what the testdouble loader "sees" is .ts extensions. Switching the replaceEsm to .ts makes this go away.

There is a LOT of confusion around .js/.ts in the TypeScript world, and this is a part of it.

Thanks for a great explanation @giltayar .
I can confirm that with node v18.16.0 and running it like NODE_OPTIONS="--loader=ts-node/esm --loader=testdouble" npm run test mocks are working.
I will do a little bit more testing (ie can we add multiple loaders into ava config in package.json, and which version of node 16 things work with) and add it all up in here.
If you are ok with this I can also make a PR with docs/working example of this.

I can confirm that adding ava config to package.json:

"ava": {
    "extensions": {
      "ts": "module"
    },
    "nodeArguments": [
      "--loader=ts-node/esm",
      "--loader=testdouble"
    ]
  }

and running tests like npm run test or yarn test works too (again, order of loaders in the array is important!).

On the linked issue, I have posted a brief explanation of why ts-node does not always short-circuit despite appearing like it does, and why its resolver needs to come last in the chain. (first in the args, last in the chain)
TypeStrong/ts-node#2008 (comment)