json files should be usable in .d.ts files without breaking things

Search Terms

resolveJsonModule import definition

Suggestion

As a .json file is a static resource, it should be able to be referenced in a global.d.ts file for example without that file being automatically treated as a module. The reason for this is that a .json file may be used to simply enforce valid translation keys, and you shouldn't need to suck the whole .json file into the transpilation process to do that.

Use Cases

Example:

import translations from "../assets/translations/en-AU.json"
type $translate = {
    instant: (translationKey: keyof typeof translations) => string,
    use: Function,
    proposedLanguage: Function
}

The downside of the current method again is that the translations file is output in the transpilation process, which is wasteful if the file is large.

What the above code snippet is trying to achieve, should be allowed in a .d.ts file without breaking global declaration functionality.

Checklist

My suggestion meets these guidelines:

• This wouldn't be a breaking change in existing TypeScript / JavaScript code
• This wouldn't change the runtime behavior of existing JavaScript code
• This could be implemented without emitting different JS based on the types of the expressions
• This isn't a runtime feature (e.g. new expression-level syntax)

Start by reproducing the example involving global.d.ts, a .d.ts file, and ../assets/translations/en-AU.json, then inspect how declaration files and JSON imports are currently handled. Done means the example can reference the JSON for translation keys without breaking global declarations or unnecessarily including the JSON in transpilation output.