Vite - `declare const` to prevent typescript from flagging defines doesn't actually work

https://vitejs.dev/config/shared-options.html#define advises to "add the type declarations in the env.d.ts or vite-env.d.ts file to get type checks and Intellisense."

the value gets replaced correctly, but typescript still complains

vite.config.js

const web_describe = execSync("git describe --dirty").toString().trim();
const meta_describe = execSync("git -C ./path/to/submodule describe --dirty").toString().trim();

export default defineConfig({
    plugins: [vue()],
    // ...
    define: {
        __WEB_GIT_DESCRIBE__: JSON.stringify(web_describe),
        __META_GIT_DESCRIBE__: JSON.stringify(meta_describe),
    },
});

tsconfig.json - template from tsc, only thing i changed is strictNullChecks. adding it didn't change anything.