diff --git a/package.json b/package.json
index 6e5feac8a16a9..9996b216b1a6a 100644
--- a/package.json
+++ b/package.json
@@ -58,7 +58,7 @@
     "kbn:watch": "node scripts/kibana --dev --logging.json=false",
     "build:types": "rm -rf ./target/types && tsc --p tsconfig.types.json",
     "docs:acceptApiChanges": "node --max-old-space-size=6144 scripts/check_published_api_changes.js --accept",
-    "kbn:bootstrap": "node scripts/build_ts_refs",
+    "kbn:bootstrap": "node scripts/build_ts_refs --ignore-type-failures",
     "spec_to_console": "node scripts/spec_to_console",
     "backport-skip-ci": "backport --prDescription \"[skip-ci]\"",
     "storybook": "node scripts/storybook",
diff --git a/src/dev/typescript/build_ts_refs_cli.ts b/src/dev/typescript/build_ts_refs_cli.ts
index a073e58623278..63eb1a3da21ec 100644
--- a/src/dev/typescript/build_ts_refs_cli.ts
+++ b/src/dev/typescript/build_ts_refs_cli.ts
@@ -18,6 +18,14 @@ import { concurrentMap } from './concurrent_map';
 
 const CACHE_WORKING_DIR = Path.resolve(REPO_ROOT, 'data/ts_refs_output_cache');
 
+const TS_ERROR_REF = /\sTS\d{1,6}:\s/;
+
+const isTypeFailure = (error: any) =>
+  error.exitCode === 1 &&
+  error.stderr === '' &&
+  typeof error.stdout === 'string' &&
+  TS_ERROR_REF.test(error.stdout);
+
 export async function runBuildRefsCli() {
   run(
     async ({ log, flags }) => {
@@ -48,7 +56,20 @@ export async function runBuildRefsCli() {
         await outputCache.initCaches();
       }
 
-      await buildAllTsRefs(log);
+      try {
+        await buildAllTsRefs(log);
+        log.success('ts refs build successfully');
+      } catch (error) {
+        const typeFailure = isTypeFailure(error);
+
+        if (flags['ignore-type-failures'] && typeFailure) {
+          log.warning(
+            'tsc reported type errors but we are ignoring them for now, to see them please run `node scripts/type_check` or `node scripts/build_ts_refs` without the `--ignore-type-failures` flag.'
+          );
+        } else {
+          throw error;
+        }
+      }
 
       if (outputCache && doCapture) {
         await outputCache.captureCache(Path.resolve(REPO_ROOT, 'target/ts_refs_cache'));
@@ -61,10 +82,15 @@ export async function runBuildRefsCli() {
     {
       description: 'Build TypeScript projects',
       flags: {
-        boolean: ['clean', 'cache'],
+        boolean: ['clean', 'cache', 'ignore-type-failures'],
         default: {
           cache: true,
         },
+        help: `
+          --clean            Delete outDirs for each ts project before building
+          --no-cache         Disable fetching/extracting outDir caches based on the mergeBase with upstream
+          --ignore-type-failures  If tsc reports type errors, ignore them and just log a small warning.
+        `,
       },
       log: {
         defaultLevel: 'debug',