A sometimes easier solution now in TS/JS is to use a simple template interpolation function (template tag) to inline the parameters and let the library autonumber them.

    const x = 42
    const id = 'example'
    const { rows } = pgquery`Update t set x = ${x} where id = ${id}`

The pgquery function can convert that into the $1 and $2 that Postgres expects, but the source code is a little easier to read and has named parameters.

Of course, it potentially makes debugging the query from the database side a little harder because the query itself in its running form is still going to show the $1 and $2 placeholders so you'd have to count "holes" to figure which is which when trying to grep which source line is generating that query. I know that's why some frown on this template-based auto-placeholders because they want the code to better resemble the queries as they run in Postgres.

(Also yeah, it might be nice if Postgres also supported named placeholders like some of the other SQL databases do.)