diff --git a/variants/frontend-base-typescript/types.d.ts b/variants/frontend-base-typescript/types.d.ts
index cf741001..9a3c6292 100644
--- a/variants/frontend-base-typescript/types.d.ts
+++ b/variants/frontend-base-typescript/types.d.ts
@@ -12,3 +12,14 @@ declare module '*.jpg' {
   const content: string;
   export default content;
 }
+
+// todo: even though shakapacker ships with its own types, it currently types
+//  itself as "any" which will hopefully change in a future version
+declare module 'shakapacker' {
+  import { Configuration } from 'webpack';
+
+  export function generateWebpackConfig(
+    extraConfig?: Configuration
+  ): Configuration;
+  export * from 'webpack-merge';
+}
diff --git a/variants/frontend-base/template.rb b/variants/frontend-base/template.rb
index 02f52502..8081ed65 100644
--- a/variants/frontend-base/template.rb
+++ b/variants/frontend-base/template.rb
@@ -18,17 +18,24 @@
 
 run "rails shakapacker:install"
 
-# ensure the latest major versions of Shakapacker's peer dependencies are installed
-#
-# TODO: remove this once https://github.com/shakacode/shakapacker/pull/576 is landed
+# install dependencies for babel and webpack
 add_js_dependencies [
-  "babel-loader@10",
-  "compression-webpack-plugin@11",
-  "webpack-assets-manifest@6",
-  "webpack-cli@6",
-  "webpack-merge@6"
+  "@babel/core",
+  "@babel/plugin-transform-runtime",
+  "@babel/preset-env",
+  "@babel/runtime",
+  "babel-loader",
+  "compression-webpack-plugin",
+  "css-loader",
+  "mini-css-extract-plugin",
+  "sass-loader",
+  "style-loader",
+  "terser-webpack-plugin",
+  "webpack-assets-manifest",
+  "webpack-cli",
+  "webpack-merge"
 ]
-add_js_dependencies ["webpack-dev-server@5"], type: :dev
+add_js_dependencies ["webpack-dev-server"], type: :dev
 
 # this is added by shakapacker:install, but we've already got one (with some extra tags)
 # in our template, so remove theirs otherwise the app will error when rendering this
@@ -48,6 +55,7 @@
 copy_file "config/webpack/webpack.config.js", force: true
 
 gsub_file! "config/shakapacker.yml", "cache_path: tmp/shakapacker", "cache_path: tmp/cache/shakapacker"
+gsub_file! "config/shakapacker.yml", "javascript_transpiler: 'swc'", "javascript_transpiler: 'babel'"
 gsub_file! "config/shakapacker.yml", "source_path: app/javascript", "source_path: app/frontend"
 
 old_shakapacker_test_compile_snippet = <<~EO_OLD