Minimalistic `nyc` (Istanbul) JavaScript coverage not working for es-modules (ESM)

[Montana]

Trying to figure out why I get no coverage out of nyc whatsoever, I ended up with a file single file ./x.js that only contains:

#!/usr/bin/env node

'use strict'
console.log('======= starting tests =======');
In package.json I have

  ...
  "scripts": {
    "test": "nyc ./x.js",
  }

I've figured out the problem seems to be that nyc in fact cannot load es-modules (ESM) on the fly. A possible solution could have been:

npm i -D @istanbuljs/esm-loader-hook
NODE_OPTIONS='--experimental-loader @istanbuljs/esm-loader-hook' ./node_modules/.bin/nyc ..more options.. ./x.js

Now looking into it, according to this GitHub repository. Yet, this did not work for me, likely because my node version (16.13.2) is too new, as promised on that site.

[3cp]

I also noticed this issue. After I converted my code base from commonjs to esm, nyc could not report anything.