  Context. Intermediate- to high-mass stars are the least numerous types of
stars and they are less well understood than their more numerous low-mass
counterparts in terms of their internal physical processes. Modelling the
photometric variability of a large sample of main-sequence intermediate- to
high-mass stars in eclipsing binary systems will help to improve the models for
such stars. Aims. Our goal is to compose a homogeneously compiled sample of
main-sequence intermediate- to high-mass OBA-type dwarfs in eclipsing binary
systems from TESS photometry. We search for binaries with and without
pulsations and determine their approximate ephemerides. Methods. Our selection
starts from a catalogue of dwarfs with colours corresponding to those of
OBA-type dwarfs in the TESS Input Catalog. We develop a new automated method
aimed at detecting eclipsing binaries in the presence of strong pulsational
and/or rotational signal relative to the eclipse depths and apply it to
publicly available 30-min cadence TESS light curves. Results. Using targets
with TESS magnitudes below 15 and cuts in the 2MASS magnitude bands of $J - H <
0.045$ and $J - K < 0.06$ as most stringent criteria, we arrive at a total of
189 981 intermediate- to high-mass candidates, 91193 of which have light curves
from at least one of two data reduction pipelines. The eclipsing binary
detection and subsequent manual check for false positives resulted in 3155
unique OBA-type eclipsing binary candidates. Conclusions. Our sample of
eclipsing binary stars in the intermediate- to high-mass regime allows for
future binary (and asteroseismic) modelling with the aim to better understand
the internal physical processes in this hot part of the main sequence.
